More than 153 mines and improvised explosive devices have been destroyed by the Army in Argelia.
The municipality Argelia, despite being mostly an agricultural community, organized Armed Groups have turned it into a strategic area for drug trafficking mobility routes, which leads them to generate illicit income.
After the signing of the Peace Agreement in November 2016, the internal dispute of these armed groups for control this territory escalated causing a series of confrontations to this day. Given this situation, the National Army reinforced its number of units to combat these organized armed groups and neutralize crimes such as drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and serious attacks on human rights and violations of international humanitarian law. Some of the these illegal operations are the recruitment of minors, forced displacement and the indiscriminate use of improvised explosive devices that have overwhelmed the inhabitants of this municipality in the department of Cauca.
After the heavy operation carried out with Operation Trueno in the Micay Canyon, the National Army has dealt heavy blows to the residual GAO Carlos Patiño and the José María Becerra front, of the GAO ELN, where 23 members of these groups have been neutralized, five have surrender to justice, three minors have been recovered; 33 firearms and abundant ammunition of different calibres have been found.
These illegal structures, seeing that their criminal arm has been weakened, proceeded to implement unconventional methods to mitigate the operation of the Military Forces, adapting areas with explosive devices. These lethal weapons have been used by criminals in strategic places in rural Argelia, specifically in the municipalities of El Mango, La Belleza, Sinai, Puerto Rico and Las hamlets El Encanto, Tambo Largo, Mundo Nuevo, Los Pinos, Los Picos and Guayabal.
In the face of this complex scenario, civilians and military personnel have been victims of these areas prepared with explosives.
In order to safeguard the good physical condition of the inhabitants and troops in this area, anti-explosive technicians of the National Army have destroyed 153 of these deadly traps, including anti-personnel mines, improvised explosive devices, improvised munitions and supplies for their manufacture this year.
It should be mentioned that the anti-explosive technicians have as their mission the search, finding, neutralization, deactivation and destruction of explosive devices, in special situations that arise in this area of responsibility that put at risk the civilians and critical infrastructure of the State.
The National Army, with its special units in charge of clearing these areas prepared with explosives, will maintain the military operations so that the troops can fulfill their constitutional duty and the civilians of the rural area of Argelia have a piece of tranquility after the violent events in which they have been harmed.
Source: press-National Army
