<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">At least 10 people are believed to have died in recent fighting between armed rebel groups in Colombia near the Venezuelan border, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">"The information we have received reports at least 10 deaths in the department of Arauca as a result of clashes between the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the dissidents of FARC," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, wrote Juan Pappier, a researcher with the international rights group, on Twitter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The office of the ombudsman in Colombia, without specifying the number of fatalities, reported "the discovery of several bodies of men killed in fighting" that took place Monday and Tuesday in the small town of Puerto Rondo, in northeastern Colombia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither the government nor military authorities have reacted to the announcements.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ELN fighters in the region are engaged in bloody conflict with FARC dissidents, with both groups having rejected a historic 2016 peace agreement with the government as well as a recent truce announced by the government of new President Gustavo Petro.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Petro, the country's first leftist leader, had declared on New Year's Eve that a temporary truce had been reached with the country's five largest armed groups, including the ELN, from January 1 to June 30.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the ELN a few days later said it had not agreed to any such measure, forcing the government to walk back its major declaration, a reversal that dampened hopes for an end to decades of violence that has continued despite the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Insurgents and drug traffickers battle over remote areas of the South American country as they seek to expand their territory and control over the cocaine trade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In January 2022 ELN and other rebels engaged in fierce fighting in Arauca, leaving 50 people dead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peace talks between the ELN and the government will resume later this month in Mexico City. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>