79 police officers taken hostage after oil base attack in Colombia

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Seventy nine police officers have been held by farmers and Indigenous peoples in San Vicente del Caguan, in the Caqueta Department of Colombia, where the Emerald Energy oil company operates.

The group of farmers are protesting the destruction of the roads by the company's tank cars that transport the fuel and have been demanding for several weeks the paving of 42 kilometers of the road that connects San Vicente del Caguan with Las Delicias.

On Thursday morning, the police arrived at the scene after violent protesters set a fire and tried to take over the company's facilities. The confrontations left a policeman and a civilian killed. Nine oilfield workers were also captured alongside the police officers.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Twitter that the Minister of Defense Ivan Velasquez will be in San Vicente del Caguan on Friday.

“The unilateral release of the policemen and the protection of their integrity is paramount for the government,” he said.

Petro called on the attorney general to investigate the killings and the Red Cross to attend to those being held hostage.

Videos show the hostages spending the night on a community room floor. The murder of the policeman by the members of rural and Indigenous communities has prompted a response from the police chief, General Henry Sanabria.

"It is disconcerting the savage manner in which they ended the life of Deputy Superintendent Ricardo Arley Monroy Prieto, when he was protecting people frightened by the onslaught of a pack that favored chaos over dialogue," Sanabria wrote on Twitter.

Audios have been released in which a uniformed man desperately asked an army commander for a helicopter to take out the wounded police officer and help them repel the attack.

"What's going on? Some support. Two hours holding out, my general. Two hours, my general. I have a seriously wounded comrade, my general," pleaded the policeman. "There are no human rights for us, what are we waiting for, for them to finish us all off?”

The Mayor of San Vicente del Caguan, Julian Perdomo, has made urgent appeals to the government to retake control of the area. He said that it is "regrettable that 90% of the company's infrastructure was destroyed and, in addition to being set on fire, it was also looted. With these acts, almost 500 people were left without work".​​​​​​​