Over 65 farmers fled Yondó, Antioquia today (July 12) due to a clash between the ELN and Clan del Golfo. According to the Mayor’s office in Yondó fighting broke out between the two groups in Puerto Matilde but quickly spread to the rest of the Cimitarra River valley.
This is the latest in a series of confrontations between the two groups. On May 16, fighting between the two armed groups in Valdivia forced over 215 people from their homes.
In March, another clash between the ELN and the CdG in front of a school in El Bagre left one person dead and a community forced to choose sides between the two groups. In the past few years, there have been similar clashes in Segovia, Briceno, and Ituango.
It’s no coincidence that those locations dot a critical drug trafficking route used to transport coca and processed cocaine through Antioquia to Choco on the Pacific coast and the Gulf of Uraba, the traditional stronghold of the Clan del Golfo.
The Gulf of Uraba and Buenaventura serve as critical departure points for cocaine destined for the United States. Cocaine leaving Buenaventura is typically concealed on shipments headed north.
The cocaine that makes it to Gulf of Uraba is often transported to Panama or other countries in Central American countries on go-fast boats before being moved through land-trafficking routes in Mexico.
Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s largest drug trafficking organization, currently exerts control over key trafficking corridors in northern Antioquia, having displaced ELN and FARC dissident groups from several of their former strongholds.
However, in May of this year, the 18th Front of the FARC Dissidents declared a new offensive to regain control of Ituango, Antioquia. A letter posted on social media reads, “We warn that if we continue to see institutional complicity with paramilitaries in the next eight days, we will have no choice but to launch a military offensive. We don’t want any more corrupt public forces.”
The 18th FARC Front is a part of the broader confederation of FARC Dissident Fronts known as the Estado Mayor Central (EMC). The EMC is one of the two major FARC Dissident groups that did not conform with the 2016 Peace Treaty and is led by Ivan Mordisco.
According to intelligence sources cited by Teleantioquia Noticias, the 18th Front and the ELN have allied to try and reclaim the territories that the Clan del Golfo has taken from them.
The skirmishes this week between ELN and Clan del Golfo in Yondó as well as previous clashes in Valdivia, Ituango, and El Bagre are most likely part of an effort to retake these territories.
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