A mob of over 200 people kidnapped 18 Colombian soldiers on Sunday during an armed operation against the National Liberation Army (ELN) Marxist terror group, local outlets reported.
The officials reportedly remain kidnapped at an indigenous community reserve at press time.
The incident occurred in a rural area of the town of El Carmen de Atrato, Chocó, as the military officials conducted operations against ELN. In a statement shared by the Colombian National Army’s Fifteenth Brigade Command to local outlets, the military institution explained that the officials were “surrounded and intercepted by approximately 200 people, who arbitrarily detained and transferred the soldiers to an indigenous reserve, preventing them from continuing to fulfill their constitutional mission of protecting the Colombian state and safeguarding the civilian population.”
According to the Colombian magazine Semana, the last communication with the kidnapped officials occurred at around 2:13 p.m. (local time) on Sunday amid ongoing operations against ELN, which recently unleashed a new wave of terrorist attacks against local law enforcement and civilian population.
On Monday morning, the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office announced that, at the request of the local community, the office will support the local Chocó Governor’s Office to facilitate the prompt and safe return of the abducted military members to their families and their military unit. A humanitarian mission seeking to achieve such a goal would be organized in the coming hours, according to the statement.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez condemned the incident in a separate statement shared on social media. Sánchez stressed that the ongoing military operations are intended to protect the local civilian population, “especially indigenous communities,” from threats such as the recruitment of minors, forced displacement, and other acts associated with violence, as well as to respond to early warnings issued by the Ombudsman’s Office.
“When doors are closed to law enforcement, they open to illegality. Peace is not built by kidnapping soldiers or weakening the state. Restricting their work puts precisely those communities that require greater protection at serious risk,” Sánchez’s statement read in part.
“The kidnapping of our soldiers constitutes other serious crimes, including obstruction of public service and other aggravated criminal offenses, as they are public servants carrying out a constitutional mission,” he continued. “No cause or mechanism of social pressure justifies the deprivation of liberty or the violation of the human rights of our military personnel.”
International outlets noted that the kidnapping or detention of military personnel by civilians has become commonplace in Colombia, fueled by guerrillas or drug traffickers “exploiting” residents of remote areas, who use local populations to prevent any kind of military operation against the criminal groups.
In September, 45 military officials were intercepted and kidnapped by a group of more than 600 individuals while the officials conducted anti-drug trafficking operations in the state of Cauca against a local faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Marxist terrorist group. According to information from the Colombian Army, the civilians were “presumably in collusion” with the local FARC forces.
On Sunday, the same day the soldiers were kidnapped, the ELN announced a “unilateral ceasefire” for the holiday season as a “Christmas gift” that will allegedly run from December 24, 2025, to January 3, 2026.
The Marxist terror group justified its “gift” by citing the “threat” of the United States’ ongoing military deployment and anti-drug trafficking operations in Caribbean waters but emphasized that it will resume its deadly attacks in Colombia next year.
“While the US government deploys its troops throughout the Caribbean to threaten, attack, and plunder the peoples and nations of our continent,” ELN reportedly said in a statement, “the National Liberation Army sends the Colombian people a clear message of peace by declaring a unilateral ceasefire for this Christmas and New Year’s holiday season.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
