International
Five dead in attack on Colombia-Ecuador border
| By AFP |
Gunmen killed five people in southern Colombia on the border with Ecuador, authorities said on Wednesday,
Attackers on motorbikes opened fire indiscriminately at a group of eight people on Tuesday night, said Putumayo department police chief colonel Jorge Salinas.
Five people died at the scene and the other three, including two women, were injured, Salinas told a local radio station.
The scene of the crime was known to be frequented by drug addicts.
Police suspect a faction of dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels called the Border Commandos to be behind the attack.
Marxist guerrillas FARC signed a peace treaty with the government in December 2016 to end a half centry of conflict with the state and create a communist political party.
But some dissidents refused to lay down their arms and continue to carry out attacks on the armed forces and civilians, while mostly funding their campaign through drug trafficking.
The Border Commandos were involved in a clash with another group of FARC dissidents in Putumayo a month ago, in which at least 20 suspected fighters died.
Armed groups throughout the country are fighting over territory and the lucrative drug trafficking trade.
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, much of which is shipped out of Ecuador to the United States — the number one market — and Europe.
Following the murders, Colombia President Gustavo Petro and his Ecuadoran counterpart Guillermo Lasso proposed joint operations along the 586-kilometer long border between the two countries in a Twitter exchange.
Petro said these operations would target the “mafias that use the border as a drug trafficking route.”
Lasso replied that he could “count on our active support.”
Petro, who is Colombia’s first leftist president, has vowed to negotiate with armed groups and drug traffickers in a bid to achieve a “total peace” in a country that has now suffered almost six decades of conflict.
Initial talks with these groups have not so far resulted in a reduction in violence, though.
According to the Indepaz NGO, there have been 93 massacres this year in Colombia, leaving scores of victims.
International
Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction
Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe on Monday requested that the Supreme Court restore his freedom while he appeals the historic 12-year house arrest sentence he received for bribery and procedural fraud.
Uribe, the most prominent figure of Colombia’s right wing, was convicted last week by a lower court for attempting to bribe paramilitary members into denying his ties to the violent anti-guerrilla squads.
Since Friday, the 73-year-old has been under house arrest at his residence in Rionegro, about 30 km from Medellín. The judge justified the measure by citing a risk of flight.
However, Uribe’s defense team rejected that argument and formally petitioned the court to immediately lift the detention order, claiming it lacks legal basis.
Uribe, a dominant force in Colombian politics for decades, is now the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted and placed under arrest, found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice to prevent links to paramilitary groups.
He has repeatedly denounced the trial as politically motivated, blaming pressure from the leftist government currently in power.
His political party, Centro Democrático, has called for nationwide protests on August 7 in support of Uribe, who remains popular for his hardline stance against guerrilla groups.
Uribe has until August 13 to submit his written appeal. The case will then move to the Bogotá High Court, which has until October 16 to uphold, overturn, or dismiss the sentence. If the deadline passes without a decision, the case will be archived.
International
U.S. Embassy staff restricted as gunfire erupts near compound in Port-au-Prince
The poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean is currently engulfed in a deep political crisis and a wave of violence driven by armed groups — a situation that an international security mission led by Kenya is attempting to stabilize.
Due to the worsening security conditions, the U.S. government has suspended all official movements of embassy personnel outside the compound in Port-au-Prince, the U.S. State Department announced Monday in a security alert posted on social media platform X.
“There are intense gunfights in the Tabarre neighborhood, near the U.S. Embassy,” the alert reads, urging the public to avoid the area.
Tabarre is a municipality located near Port-au-Prince International Airport, northeast of the Haitian capital.
According to a July report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 3,141 people were killed in Haitibetween January 1 and June 30 of this year.
International
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.
“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”
The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.
The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.
Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction
U.S. Embassy staff restricted as gunfire erupts near compound in Port-au-Prince
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
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Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction