A land dispute between two Indigenous groups in a restive region of Colombia on Thursday has left four people dead and 62 injured, local health authorities said.
Videos circulating on social media showed fierce clashes involving sticks and shields between the Misak and Nasa peoples in the southwestern Cauca region, as well as bloodied bodies on the ground.
Thursday’s dispute arose from ‘conflicts over land and territories,’ Colombia’s Ombudsman said.
Cauca governor Octavio Guzman took to X to denounce the violence, saying: ‘No differences can justify the pain, the death and the risk to which the population is being exposed.’
Illegal coca plantations plague Cauca’s Indigenous lands, and the area is the regular site of kidnappings and attacks conducted by guerrilla groups.
In late April, a bomb on a Cauca highway killed 21 people, making it the deadliest attack against civilians in recent decades.
Senator Aida Quilcue, an Indigenous leader of the Nasa, is the running mate of leftist presidential candidate Senator Ivan Cepeda.
In a video posted on X, she called for dialogue between the Misak and Nasa peoples.
This is ‘a historic territorial conflict that dates back years and has not been resolved... I have spoken with the parties,’ Quilcue said, calling for a ‘government presence’ in Cauca.
The Colombia military announced deployments of ground troops and air assets to the area.
Quilcue, who would become Colombia’s first-ever Indigenous vice-president if elected, was abducted for several hours by armed men in Cauca in February.
While Indigenous territorial disputes are common in Colombia, they rarely end in deadly clashes.
