Venezuela’s army reportedly strikes an ELN camp near the Colombian border, killing at least 19

At least 19 people were reportedly killed in an attack by the Venezuelan army on a camp of the ELN, Colombia’s National Liberation Army, in Apure state near the border between the two countries. The non-governmental organisation FundaRedes, which monitors human-rights violations in the border states, initially spoke of nine dead, but its coordinator Juan Francisco García told AFP on Sunday, November 1, that “another 10 bodies” were taken to San Fernando, the state capital, the day after the attack.

The strike took place before dawn on Friday, October 30, in the Buena Vista del Meta sector of the Pedro Camejo municipality, a wooded rural area in south-western Apure bordering Colombia’s Vichada department. Video provided by FundaRedes to AFP shows bodies on the ground, felled trees and what appear to be the ruins of a camp. The dead were first taken to Puerto Páez, opposite Colombia, on the other bank of the river. “Several bodies were completely shattered. Even as they were being carried to San Fernando, they still smelled of burnt flesh,” a resident of the town told the French agency. The organisation also reports an unknown number of wounded who crossed into Colombian territory.

Drones, helicopters and an “order from the US”

A Venezuelan serviceman with knowledge of the operation told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the camp was hit with drones and attack helicopters and that the guerrillas were taken by surprise without time to react. Most of the dead were, he said, Venezuelan nationals. “We had help from the CIA and the FBI. It was an order from the United States,” he claimed, adding that the forces will keep combing the area, “because we believe there are more camps”. The State Department and the government in Caracas had not immediately responded to the agency’s requests for comment. The claim comes from a single anonymous source and has not been independently confirmed.

FundaRedes director Javier Tarazona called it “the first Venezuelan bombing of the ELN”, the strongest active guerrilla organisation on the continent since most of the FARC disarmed in 2016. Military analyst Rocío San Miguel speaks of a “change of doctrine” in the country’s armed forces. García links the attacks to disputes over control of bauxite and coltan mining areas and recalls that similar incidents, with alleged use of drones carrying explosives, were recorded in recent weeks in Bolívar state.

Along the roughly 2,200 kilometres of border operate, besides the ELN, guerrillas who split from the FARC, earning money from the drug trade, illegal mining and smuggling. Bogotá accused Caracas for years of turning a blind eye. The operation coincides with the stepped-up campaign against the ELN by Colombia’s president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, who recently sent the army onto the streets of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela.

Rubio and Blanco: reforms ahead of the 2027 elections

The operation may mark a new shift in Caracas’s stance since the US ousted and arrested Nicolás Maduro in January, when his vice president Delcy Rodríguez took power and won Donald Trump’s backing. On Monday, November 2, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio received Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco at the State Department, in one of the highest-level meetings with the Rodríguez government. It came two weeks after the government and opposition agreed on a plan to reform the electoral system, with an eye to the 2027 elections.

The two men discussed progress in the reconciliation dialogue and the institutional reforms that will pave the way for “free, fair and credible elections”, the State Department statement says, while Rubio called for the release of political prisoners who remain in jail. Washington repeated Trump’s three-phase plan for Venezuela: stabilisation, economic recovery with political reconciliation and, finally, democratic transition. Blanco also met Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.