Image of the soldiers kidnapped in El Retorno.
Thirty-four Colombian soldiers have spent more than four days being held captive in a remote jungle community in the southeastern department of Guaviare, after clashes with FARC dissidents left 11 rebels dead, including a regional commander.
The standoff, which began on Monday near the municipality of El Retorno, underscores the dangerous trend of civilians being used by armed groups to obstruct military operations.
Admiral Francisco Cubides, commander of Colombia’s Armed Forces, said the soldiers were surrounded by more than 600 people following operations against the Central General Staff (EMC), the largest FARC dissident group led by alias “Iván Mordisco.”
The confrontation left ten guerrillas dead, including Willington “Dumar” Vanegas Leyva, a close ally of Mordisco, and led to the capture of ten others, one of them a minor. As the troops attempted to withdraw, Cubides said, members of the community blocked their exit, cut off access to food and water, and refused to let them move.
“The community is being instrumentalized by alias Jimmy Parra, also known as Jimmy Martínez, the leader of EMC’s structure 44,” Cubides said in a video message released by the military. “They are gravely violating the human rights of our soldiers by preventing their mobility and denying them access to basic supplies that are already running scarce.”
He added that “their safety and return to freedom is our absolute priority. We are reinforcing security in the area to avoid any attack in this hostile environment.”
On Thursday, the government confirmed that a delegation made up of representatives from the Defense and Interior ministries, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, the United Nations, the Organization of American States’ Mission to Support the Peace Process, and the Catholic Church had traveled to El Retorno to mediate the soldiers’ release.
Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez insisted the situation is unequivocally a kidnapping, despite claims from some community members that they are enforcing a “humanitarian corridor.”
“People dressed in civilian clothes claim to be holding a group of soldiers. But this is not a detention, it is a kidnapping, because they are being held against their will,” Sánchez told reporters in Bogotá. “This is an illegal, criminal action.”
He warned that using civilians as shields to block the advance of state institutions amounts to a violation of international humanitarian law.
This is not the first time Colombian troops have been detained by civilians under pressure from dissident groups. In June, 57 soldiers were surrounded and held for two days in El Tambo, Cauca, during another operation against the EMC. At the time, authorities denounced the incident as an attempt by armed groups to use communities as leverage against the state.
“Using civilians as human shields is a crime intended to block the advance of security forces and government programs in one of the regions most affected by violence,” Sánchez said, recalling the Cauca incident.
The Guaviare case, however, marks the longest such standoff this year. Cubides noted that five similar incidents have occurred in 2024, but none have lasted as many days, nor involved such inhumane conditions for the troops, who now face restricted access to essential food and water.
