Author(s)

Lina María Asprilla Ríos

Andrés Aponte

Posted on 13 Feb 2025

In mid-January 2025, war broke out in Catatumbo, Colombia, between dissidents of the 33rd Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC) and guerrilla insurgents from the National Liberation Army (ELN), driven by fierce contestation over control of criminal economies, particularly the cocaine market. The fighting has so far claimed more than 56 lives and displaced over 54 000 people.

‘I fled [our farm] with my daughter, terrified of what might happen to us on the road,’ said Leidy Barón, a farmer from Catatumbo, in an interview. The surge in displaced people has overwhelmed humanitarian services in neighbouring cities, where aid workers struggle to provide them with basic necessities.

Although the conflict initially appeared to be yet another turf war between guerrilla groups, the sheer scale of the violence and the extent of the humanitarian crisis underscore the gravity of the situation in Catatumbo and its broader implications for peace in a country long plagued by armed conflict. This crisis illustrates shifting dynamics of violence in Colombia: conflict in rural areas has changed, with armed actors no longer directly challenging the state but seeking to dominate local criminal economies through increasingly violent strategies against rival factions and civilians.

Conflict and organized crime in Catatumbo

Catatumbo, a major cocaine-producing region in the department of Norte de Santander, on the border with Venezuela, is rich in natural resources such as oil, coal and uranium, and its strategic location, with weak border controls and limited state presence, has made it a stronghold for coca cultivation – it is home to over 30 000 hectares of coca crops, or 12 per cent of the country’s plantations.

The Colombian state has lost legitimacy in the region due to its inability to curb the violence that has long plagued the area. The government’s strategy has been to deploy the military in response to public order crises, without a long-term plan to strengthen its security presence in the region, or bring stability in the form of social infrastructure. As a result, Catatumbo suffers from inadequate public infrastructure and high levels of poverty. These conditions have enabled armed groups to gain a foothold in the region, where they wage violent territorial battles over control of coca plantations and illegal mining operations.

In 2016, the peace accord struck between the Colombian government and the FARC led to the group’s disarmament and demobilization. However, this left a power vacuum in the production and commercialization of coca in Catatumbo, which had been under the armed group’s control. The ELN and FARC dissident groups – those who refused to abide by the peace agreement – seized the opportunity to move into the FARC’s former territories. Today, the ELN, FARC dissidents, the Popular Liberation Army and the Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s largest criminal group, are all believed to be vying for Catatumbo’s lucrative illicit economy.

In 2019, these groups reached a turf-sharing agreement, dividing control over coca crops, drug laboratories, smuggling routes and local businesses. While tensions occasionally flared, the agreement mostly held as coca sales plummeted amid a regionwide economic crisis in the coca sector. However, as the market bounced back, old rivalries reignited, with some groups attempting to seize enemy territory. This came to a head in January 2025, when the ELN launched coordinated attacks against FARC dissidents in eight municipalities, setting off a wave of ambushes, targeted killings and open warfare that have upended entire communities.

Catatumbo, in north-eastern Colombia, is a major cocaine-producing region contested by multiple armed groups.

Unlike Colombia’s traditional guerrilla groups, such as the FARC, which had a top-down hierarchy, today’s armed actors have a decentralized command structure, which makes them more fragmented and reactive to local dynamics. Armed criminal groups now navigate an unstable and rapidly changing environment, where pacts with other armed actors are crucial for dividing up territories and controlling illicit economies. As a result, even a minimal shift in the balance of power can lead to a group’s collapse, as there is no organizational hierarchy to act as a stabilizing force.

And these armed groups no longer see the state as the primary enemy, as FARC did; instead, their targets are rival factions with whom they compete for control of local illicit economies – including extortion, coca cultivation and illegal mining. As these groups have become increasingly dependent on local illicit economies, they have abandoned any past constraints that limited violence against civilians, particularly those perceived as supporters of enemy factions. Their victims are often social and environmental leaders, representatives of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, and signatories of the 2016 peace accord.

Implications for negotiations

The outcome of the current conflict in Catatumbo is shrouded in uncertainty. There is no clear winner of this turf war on the horizon, and the risk of further bloodshed looms large. Thousands of displaced people are stranded in Norte de Santander’s capital city, Cúcuta, waiting to return to their homes, while those who stayed in Catatumbo live under lockdown, caught in the crossfire between the ELN and FARC dissident groups. Government representatives have admitted their responsibility for not intervening sooner, despite having information about the brewing conflict. ‘[The crisis in Catatumbo] represents a national failure,’ said Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro. ‘This may be one of the most dramatic events (…) in modern history,’ he added.

The conflict underscores the shortcomings of Petro’s ‘total peace’ policy, which aims to negotiate settlements with armed and organized crime groups. Flare-ups of violence between armed groups across the country (such as in Chocó, Cauca, Bolívar, Guaviare and Arauca) point to the urgent need for a more effective security policy. Violence targeting 2016 peace accord signatories also illustrates the immense challenge of successfully implementing demobilization, disarmament and reintegration processes, and ensuring the protection of those who lay down their arms.

The recent surge in violence in Catatumbo has led Petro’s government to suspend negotiations with the ELN, issue arrest warrants for the group’s leaders and declare a ‘state of internal commotion’ in Catatumbo’s municipalities. It is unclear what other actions will be taken to stem the violence, and there is even less information on how the government will take back control of the region from the guerrillas. At the time of writing, state forces had only managed to secure Catatumbo’s main road to allow residents to access basic necessities such as food and medicine.

The government’s suspension of talks with the ELN marks another setback in Colombia’s attempts to negotiate with the guerrilla group, underlining the difficulty of achieving territorial stability through national peace processes. The post-peace agreement landscape has led to a more criminalized form of conflict where groups govern through violence and exert control over populations living on the periphery of the state.

What the conflict in Catatumbo, and those elsewhere in Colombia, make clear is that security strategies need to be overhauled. Peace agreements between armed groups and the state are no longer the answer, as the new patterns of violence show that armed groups have shifted their focus to criminal governance of illicit economies. The scars of these new dynamics run deep, placing the burden on civilians. Leidy Barón put it simply: ‘It leaves a permanent mark on your life. It’s truly devastating.’