As happened a year ago, the Catatumbo region in the department of Norte de Santander, in eastern Colombia, has once again become the scene of one of the most acute outbreaks of violence in the country’s internal armed conflict. What in other times was an area marked by periodic clashes between illegal armed groups and the state has once again, with the start of 2026, turned into a powder keg in which two organizations—the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the defunct FARC’s 33rd Front—are fighting for territorial control with a level of violence that has left deep scars on peasant and Indigenous communities.
This dispute not only intensifies a war over illegal economies such as drug trafficking, but has also prolonged the suffering of residents who, without being part of the conflict, have seen their lives shattered by crossfire, intimidation, and mass forced displacement.
The roads of Catatumbo, once traveled by farmers between their plots and local markets, have for the past year become paths of exile and fear. Entire families have fled municipalities such as Tibú, El Tarra, Teorama, and San Calixto, seeking refuge in cities like Cúcuta, Ocaña, and Puerto Santander, safe from bullets but not from the specter of uncertainty or lingering trauma.
Although the figures in recent days are not comparable to last year’s crisis, when tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes within a few weeks, the situation has worsened since late December due to clashes between armed groups that, before erupting into open confrontation, shared or negotiated territories and clandestine economies.
Pressure on Cúcuta is intensifying, just as Colombia is working to strengthen the border with Venezuela, where the city is located, in anticipation of receiving immigrants from the neighboring country following the U.S. military operation last weekend.
Violence flares in Colombia’s Catatumbo region amid armed group clashes
Catatumbo has historically been a strategic corridor for guerrilla groups due to its proximity to the Venezuelan border, its jungle geography, and the illicit economies that run through it, such as coca leaf cultivation and the subsequent production of cocaine.
With the start of the year, and as occurred in January 2025, the ELN has once again stepped up its operations in the region with the aim of wresting areas of influence from the 33rd Front of FARC dissidents—under the command of alias Calarca—who had maintained control over various municipalities following the signing of the 2016 Peace Agreement that demobilized the FARC as a principal organization.
In this regard, clashes between illegal armed groups have produced a complex toll, according to a report delivered yesterday, Monday, by the Ombudswoman, Iris Marín, which have generated particular fear among the civilian population. According to the document, more than 130 families—around 300 people—are receiving humanitarian assistance in Cúcuta, the departmental capital, after fleeing the fighting reported in rural areas of the municipalities of Tibú and El Tarra.
“From the Ombudsman’s Office we are accompanying them and monitoring the process to ensure that the victim assistance pathway is followed. Once again, we call on armed groups to immediately cease the fighting and keep the civilian population out of the conflict,” the Ombudswoman wrote yesterday on her X social media account.
A esta hora, 130 familias conformadas por cerca de 300 personas, son atendidas en Cúcuta por parte de nuestra regional de Norte de Santander y de la Personería de Cúcuta.
Estos grupos familiares que han llegado a la ciudad en los últimos días, provienen de zonas rurales de…
— Iris Marín Ortiz (@MarnIris) January 6, 2026
Although various state agencies are leading assistance efforts for these people in Cúcuta, confinements continue to shape the daily lives of numerous families who remain trapped in the crossfire, amid a resurgence of hostilities that, in this latest phase, began over Christmas and continued into the first days of the new year.
A new phase of cyclical violence
In the final two weeks of last year, the region saw intense clashes that forced the displacement of at least 250 people in rural areas, according to official reports. The violence was not limited to displacement: on December 28, an attack on workers at an oil field caused a crude oil spill in the area, triggering an environmental and social emergency in a sector near the municipality of Tibú.
Far from dissipating, the violence continued, and on the last day of 2025 there was an incursion by FARC dissident groups in El Tarra, which sparked panic among the population during the year-end festivities, according to information from the Ombudsman’s Office. This agency also reported that over the past year more than 92,000 people saw their mobility restricted, worsening the crisis unfolding in this part of the territory.
The start of 2026 likewise failed to bring a truce for Catatumbo. Reports from humanitarian authorities indicate that the first days of the year were marked by new armed clashes in the rural areas of Tibú and El Tarra; and alongside the displacements, a situation of confinement emerged, as dozens of families have remained isolated in their homes due to the risk posed by antipersonnel mines and the crossfire between these groups.
Despite the military deployment in the area, armed groups continue to operate in pursuit of control over drug trafficking routes and illegal mining. Although there are fears that, following the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, the ELN guerrilla group could be expelled from that country—thus weakening its criminal operations, which have traditionally evaded the border allegedly with the connivance of the Venezuelan regime—so far there have been no official statements on the matter, while the civilian population continues to suffer the consequences of clashes between criminal groups that have terrorized the area for years.