At least 34 government soldiers have been kidnapped by armed civilians in a jungle in southeastern Colombia after clashes that killed 11 fighters, including a commander of a dissident faction of the former FARC rebel group, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez says.
The fighting occurred on Sunday in a rural part of the El Retorno municipality in the province of Guaviare and involved members of the Central General Staff (EMC), a group of former fighters with the left-wing FARC, who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government.
Sanchez said on Tuesday that the soldiers were taken as they were evacuating the area after a military operation that killed an EMC commander and 10 other rebels.
The Colombian army has maintained that the civilians in the region receive orders from the EMC, the main FARC dissident group.
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