Guerrilla War Erupts on Colombia-Venezuela Border: ELN's Catatumbo Offensive

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Video originally published on January 27, 2025.

For longtime observers, it felt like a return to the darkest days of the conflict. An outbreak of violence so severe that Bogota's City Paper called it Colombia's most severe humanitarian crisis in over 20 years. On January 16th, a tense peace between two guerrilla groups shattered along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, in a remote region known as Catatumbo. According to Insight Crime, the National Liberation Army—known by its Spanish acronym of ELN—launched what it called a full-scale assault against the rival 33rd Front. By January 21st, at least 100 people had been killed, and over 20,000 people had been driven from their homes. Images of ordinary Colombians forced to shelter in sports stadiums offered chilling proof that this outburst was anything but normal, representing the most violent offensive Colombia has seen since well before the start of the peace process with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC.

Key Takeaways

On January 16th, the ELN launched a full-scale assault against the rival 33rd Front in Catatumbo, killing at least 100 people and displacing over 20,000 within a week—Colombia's most severe humanitarian crisis in over 20 years.

Catatumbo contains 44,000 hectares of coca fields and crucial drug trafficking routes into Venezuela, making territorial control extremely valuable as the cocaine market hits record highs.

Two competing theories explain the violence: a straightforward battle for cocaine trafficking control, or a Venezuelan-directed operation amid deteriorating relations between Bogota and Caracas following Maduro's disputed election.

The ELN offensive may represent a show of force by the Northeast Front after the group suffered setbacks elsewhere in Colombia, losing territory to the Gulf Clan cartel and being forced into alliances with FARC dissidents.

President Gustavo Petro declared a state of siege and Emergency Declaration, deploying 5,000 troops and shifting from his 'Total Peace' platform to confrontational rhetoric, warning the ELN has 'chosen the path of war.'

Analysts warn this outbreak could inspire copycat offensives by other armed groups across Colombia, potentially triggering a chain reaction that could plunge the country into its worst conflict in years.

The Scale of the Humanitarian Crisis

The violence that erupted in Catatumbo on January 16th quickly escalated into a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented recent scale. Within just five days of fighting, the death toll had reached at least 100 people, but it was the displacement figures that truly shocked the nation. Over 20,000 people were driven from their homes before a week had passed, creating scenes reminiscent of Colombia's darkest conflict years. The images of ordinary Colombians seeking refuge in sports stadiums provided visceral evidence of the severity of the situation, evoking memories of mass displacement events that many had hoped were relegated to the country's past. Colombia Reports characterized the offensive as the most violent Colombia has seen since well before the start of the peace process with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC, a peace deal that was finalized in 2016 and had represented a turning point in the country's long internal conflict. The fact that this level of violence and displacement could occur nearly a decade after that historic peace agreement underscores just how fragile security remains in Colombia's remote border regions, where state presence is limited and armed groups continue to operate with relative impunity.

The Combatants: ELN and the 33rd Front

Both the ELN and the 33rd Front are technically meant to be leftwing rebels, though this ideological framing obscures the reality of their operations. The 33rd Front is a splinter group from the Marxist-Leninist FARC which refused to disarm along with its comrades after the 2016 peace deal. While both groups maintain revolutionary rhetoric, in reality they seem less interested in global Communist revolution and more interested in running local mafias based on extortion, kidnapping, and cocaine trafficking. This transformation from ideological insurgents to criminal enterprises is a pattern that has repeated throughout Colombia's conflict, as armed groups that once fought for political goals increasingly focus on the lucrative illicit economy. The cocaine trade is particularly important for understanding the recent fighting, as it provides the financial lifeblood that sustains these organizations and makes territorial control so valuable. Despite their shared leftist origins and theoretical ideological alignment, the two groups have become rivals competing for control of the same criminal economy, demonstrating how the logic of the drug trade can override any sense of revolutionary solidarity.

Catatumbo: A Cocaine Trafficker's Paradise

The Catatumbo region represents one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Colombia's illicit economy. With 44,000 hectares of coca fields, it contains among the largest concentrations of coca cultivation in the country. This comes at a time when Insight Crime reports the local cocaine market has hit a record high, making control of these production areas more valuable than ever. Beyond just the coca fields themselves, the region offers numerous routes for shipping drugs across the border into Venezuela, providing crucial access to international trafficking networks. For the ELN, which already has a major presence in Venezuela, control of these cross-border routes would represent a significant strategic advantage. According to the news program Noticias Uno, it may have even been a lost cocaine shipment that triggered the fighting, suggesting that the immediate catalyst for the violence was a dispute over a specific drug trafficking operation. The combination of extensive coca cultivation, strategic border location, and existing trafficking infrastructure makes Catatumbo a prize worth fighting for, and the record-high cocaine market only increases the stakes of this territorial competition.

The Venezuelan Connection Theory

A straightforward battle for control of lucrative drug routes isn't the only theory behind the surge in violence. Colombian guerrillas regularly fight one another for territory without causing large-scale humanitarian crises, leading some analysts to look for a deeper reason for the ELN's offensive—a reason that could originate across the border in Venezuela. Although Colombia's leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, initially had an extremely warm relationship with Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro, the bromance has soured in recent months. To Maduro's annoyance, Bogota refused to recognize his sham election win last summer, and tensions have increased between the two neighbors ever since. Venezuela has long offered a safe haven to the ELN, which it sees as ideologically aligned with its Bolivarian revolution. In the post-election protests, there were even reports of the guerrillas offering their muscle to the Maduro regime, suggesting a relationship that goes beyond mere tolerance to active cooperation. Security consultant Jorge Mantilla told BBC Mundo that collusion between the ELN and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces of Venezuela became evident since 2019, noting that on multiple occasions and through the commands of the Eastern Front of the ELN, guerrilla leaders declared loyalty to Maduro. This history of cooperation has led some in Colombia to believe the recent violence has been induced or even directed by Caracas as a way of pressuring or destabilizing the Petro government.

Evidence of Venezuelan Involvement

Among those promoting the theory of Venezuelan involvement is the Colombian daily El Tiempo, which reported on an army intelligence briefing it claimed showed ELN troops arrived in Catatumbo from Venezuelan territory. The newspaper went further, writing that behind the ELN's ferocious attack, Colombia's sovereignty is at stake, framing the violence not as an internal criminal dispute but as a cross-border threat to national security. President Petro himself even seemed to allude to this interpretation in a recent speech, when he declared that the actions of the ELN are not actions that are only due to the internal armed conflict, but rather a deadly strategy that endangers national sovereignty. This language represents a significant escalation in how the Colombian government is characterizing the violence, moving beyond the framework of criminal gang warfare to suggest state-level involvement. Obviously, Venezuela encouraging Colombian rebels to spark a land war across the border would be a major news story, one that could potentially have ramifications for the whole of Latin America. However, at time of writing on Thursday, it's not entirely clear that this is what happened, and the evidence remains circumstantial rather than conclusive.

The Alternative Explanation: Internal ELN Dynamics

Rather than a Venezuelan plot, some analysts have suggested that the violence has Colombian roots related to the internal dynamics of the ELN itself. Despite presenting itself as a united guerrilla army, the ELN is better understood as a collection of autonomous local groups organized under the same branding. This decentralized structure means that different ELN fronts can pursue different strategies and have different levels of capability and success. Currently, that brand is being seriously tarnished by setbacks in other parts of Colombia. In other regions, ELN groups—known as fronts—are fighting against the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces (or AGC), better known to English speakers as the notorious Gulf Clan cartel. In most of these localized wars, the ELN is losing. In others, it has even been forced into a shaky alliance with FARC dissidents to try and retain its territory, a humiliating position for a group that once saw itself as a vanguard revolutionary force. These setbacks elsewhere have sent the ELN brand into the toilet, undermining its reputation for strength and potentially encouraging rivals to challenge it in other areas. As such, Insight Crime suggests that the Northeast Front based around Catatumbo may have decided to preempt any challenges with a massive show of force, demonstrating its capability and willingness to use extreme violence to maintain control of its territory.

The ELN's Show of Force

The show of force mounted by the ELN in Catatumbo has been both brutal and massive in scale. The offensive has involved hit squads going door to door with kill lists and eliminating anyone connected to the 33rd Front, a tactic designed to completely eliminate the rival organization's presence in the region. The ELN has also flooded the region with up to 4,000 fighters, representing a major concentration of force that demonstrates the group's continued ability to mobilize significant numbers of combatants. For the Gulf Clan members based in nearby Cúcuta—as well as other regional rivals like the EPL—this could all be construed as a warning: don't even try to mess with this particular ELN front. The message is clear: while the ELN may be struggling elsewhere, the Northeast Front remains powerful and willing to use overwhelming violence to maintain its position. However, if this was indeed the plan, then the group may have overplayed its hand. The scale of the violence and the resulting humanitarian crisis have drawn national attention and prompted a major government response, potentially undermining whatever strategic benefits the ELN hoped to achieve through its demonstration of force.

Government Response: State of Siege

In response to the ELN's offensive, President Petro both declared a state of siege as well as issuing an Emergency Declaration. According to Bogota's City Paper, the declarations have given the government increased powers in the region, including the ability to restrict movement, impose curfews, and suspend certain laws. These powers will last 90 days, at which point Congress will need to approve their extension, though Petro seems to be planning for a longer game. As Colombia's leader wrote on X, the ELN has chosen the path of war, and that's what they will get. For a president elected on a platform of pursuing Total Peace with Colombia's armed gangs, the sudden shift of rhetoric was a little head-spinning. Only last year, Petro was being lambasted for offering ELN concessions to resume negotiations, with critics arguing that his willingness to negotiate was being interpreted as weakness by the armed groups. As 2025 gets underway, he now seems to be instead channeling the spirit of Ecuador's Daniel Noboa—who famously declared an internal armed conflict with his nation's armed gangs—representing a dramatic pivot from negotiation to confrontation. This shift reflects both the severity of the crisis and the political pressure on Petro to demonstrate strength in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Military Deployment and Immediate Challenges

The Colombian military is surging 5,000 troops into Catatumbo to try and quell the violence, representing a significant deployment of force to the remote border region. Yet the worry isn't so much that ELN will prove a match for them in direct military confrontation, as that this outbreak of fighting will inspire copycat offensives by other armed groups across Colombia. Already, outbreaks of fighting in the south between FARC dissident groups have claimed about twenty lives, suggesting that the violence may be spreading beyond Catatumbo. Should other groups increase operations as well, it could set off a chain reaction, with armed groups across the country calculating that this is an opportune moment to make their own territorial gains while government forces are concentrated in the northeast. The challenge for the Colombian military is not just to defeat the ELN in Catatumbo, but to do so quickly enough and decisively enough to deter other groups from launching their own offensives. This requires not just military capability but also strategic messaging and the ability to project force across multiple regions simultaneously, a significant challenge for any military operating in Colombia's difficult terrain.

The Risk of Escalating Conflict

Speaking to the New York Times, Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group struck an ominous note about the potential trajectory of the conflict. Speaking of a possible impending crisis, she told the paper of record that they are very concerned that moment is now, adding that escalations on various front lines have taken the conflict to a very dangerous inflection point. This assessment from a respected international conflict analysis organization suggests that the Catatumbo violence may represent more than just another flare-up in Colombia's ongoing low-intensity conflict. Instead, it could mark a turning point where multiple armed groups simultaneously escalate their operations, overwhelming the government's capacity to respond and plunging the country back into widespread violence. It could yet be that, after being elected on a peace ticket, President Petro winds up overseeing Colombia's worst bout of conflict in years, a tragic irony that would represent a major setback for Colombia's peace process. The coming weeks and months will be critical in determining whether the government can contain the violence in Catatumbo and prevent it from spreading, or whether this outbreak marks the beginning of a broader deterioration in Colombia's security situation.

The Broader Implications

The crisis in Catatumbo has implications that extend far beyond the immediate humanitarian catastrophe. It represents a test of President Petro's Total Peace strategy and his government's ability to manage Colombia's complex landscape of armed groups. The fact that this violence erupted despite ongoing peace negotiations with the ELN suggests that the government's negotiating strategy may need fundamental revision, or that the decentralized nature of the ELN makes any unified peace agreement extremely difficult to achieve. The potential Venezuelan involvement adds an international dimension to what might otherwise be treated as an internal security matter, raising questions about Colombia's sovereignty and its ability to secure its borders. If Caracas is indeed supporting or directing ELN operations, it would represent a serious escalation in regional tensions and could draw in other Latin American countries or international actors. Even if the violence is purely internally motivated, it demonstrates the continued power of Colombia's armed groups and the fragility of the peace achieved through the 2016 FARC agreement. The fact that FARC dissidents, the ELN, the Gulf Clan, and other groups continue to operate and compete for territory shows that ending one insurgency does not necessarily bring peace when the underlying conditions—including the lucrative cocaine trade—remain unchanged. The Catatumbo crisis thus serves as a reminder that Colombia's conflict is far from over, and that the path to lasting peace remains long and uncertain.

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FAQ

What happened in Catatumbo on January 16th?

The National Liberation Army (ELN) launched a full-scale assault against the rival 33rd Front guerrilla group in the Catatumbo region along the Colombia-Venezuela border. Within a week, at least 100 people were killed and over 20,000 were displaced from their homes, with many forced to shelter in sports stadiums.

Who are the ELN and the 33rd Front?

Both are technically leftwing rebel groups. The 33rd Front is a splinter group from the Marxist-Leninist FARC that refused to disarm after the 2016 peace deal. However, both groups function more like local mafias focused on extortion, kidnapping, and cocaine trafficking rather than ideological revolution.

Why is Catatumbo so important to these groups?

Catatumbo contains 44,000 hectares of coca fields—among the largest in Colombia—at a time when the cocaine market has hit record highs. The region also offers numerous routes for shipping drugs across the border into Venezuela, making territorial control extremely valuable for trafficking operations.

Is Venezuela involved in the violence?

There are two competing theories. Some analysts and Colombian officials, including President Petro, suggest Venezuela may have induced or directed the violence as relations between Bogota and Caracas have deteriorated. El Tiempo reported army intelligence showing ELN troops arrived from Venezuelan territory. However, others believe the violence has purely Colombian roots related to internal ELN dynamics and setbacks elsewhere in the country.

What is the alternative explanation for the ELN offensive?

The ELN is a decentralized collection of autonomous local groups under the same branding. In other parts of Colombia, ELN fronts are losing territory to the Gulf Clan cartel and have been forced into alliances with FARC dissidents. The Northeast Front in Catatumbo may have launched this massive show of force—including up to 4,000 fighters and door-to-door hit squads—to preempt challenges and warn rivals not to attempt territorial expansion in their region.

How has President Petro responded?

Petro declared a state of siege and issued an Emergency Declaration, granting the government increased powers for 90 days including the ability to restrict movement, impose curfews, and suspend certain laws. He deployed 5,000 troops to Catatumbo and shifted his rhetoric dramatically from his 'Total Peace' platform to declaring that 'the ELN has chosen the path of war, and that's what they will get.'

What are the broader risks of this conflict?

The primary concern is that this outbreak will inspire copycat offensives by other armed groups across Colombia, setting off a chain reaction. Already, fighting between FARC dissident groups in the south has claimed about twenty lives. The International Crisis Group warned that escalations on various front lines have taken the conflict to a very dangerous inflection point, potentially leading to Colombia's worst bout of conflict in years.

What does this mean for Colombia's peace process?

The violence represents a major setback for the peace process. It occurred nearly a decade after the historic 2016 FARC peace agreement and during President Petro's 'Total Peace' initiative. The crisis demonstrates that ending one insurgency doesn't necessarily bring peace when underlying conditions—including the lucrative cocaine trade—remain unchanged, and shows the continued power of Colombia's armed groups in remote border regions.

Sources

About the Author

Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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