One person died and at least five were wounded in an alleged clash in Venezuela between the Bolivarian National Guard and members of the Colombian guerrilla group National Liberation Army (ELN), the NGO Fundaredes told AFP on Wednesday.
The clash, which occurred on Monday in the town of Junín, near the border with Colombia, is the first between Venezuelan security forces and the ELN since right-wing Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella came to power.
A clash between members of the Colombian guerrilla group ELN and the Bolivarian National Guard in southeastern Venezuela, near the border with Colombia, leaves one dead and several wounded, the NGO Fundaredes tells #AFP pic.twitter.com/zP3pJPjOsw— Agence France-Presse (@AFPespanol) September 30, 2026
"They tell us of five wounded and one dead," Fundaredes director Javier Tarazona told AFP. He spent five years in prison for denouncing, among other things, the guerrilla movements in the area.
He added that the wounded were transferred from Junín to the nearby city of Rubio, in Táchira state, where they were treated at a local clinic.
The ELN is one of several armed groups engaged in drug trafficking, illegal mining, and smuggling along the porous 2,200-kilometer border between Venezuela and Colombia. According to Tarazona, the situation in the region has changed since Nicolás Maduro's capture by the US military in January and, above all, since De la Espriella came to power in August.
Unlike his leftist predecessor Gustavo Petro (2022-2026), who had begun peace negotiations with armed groups, De la Espriella pledged to fight organized crime in the country head-on, with the support of the United States. His offensive against the guerrillas in the border region has caused "a significant displacement of these (Colombian) groups toward Venezuela," Tarazona said.
The activist also pointed to "an internal struggle" within Venezuela's new interim government, between sectors "in favor of cleaning Venezuelan territory of armed groups" and others "who still see it as an armed group protecting the revolution."
The ousted Maduro was accused, during his years in power (2013-2025), of offering refuge in Venezuelan territory to the Colombian leftist rebels. At a meeting in New York last week, Colombia and 14 other Latin American members of the Shield of the Americas alliance, created at Trump's initiative, agreed to freeze assets, restrict visas, and promote criminal prosecution for both members and sympathizers of the ELN and 23 other criminal organizations.