Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on Tuesday that hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition were missing from two military bases in the South American country.
In a brief statement, Petro said military inspections this month revealed hundreds of thousands of bullets, thousands of grenades and 37 anti-tank missiles had been stolen from a military base in the central part of the country and another base near the Caribbean coast. He said that it was found that the incident occurred. .
Tens of thousands of Colombians protest against leftist president’s policies
Petro, the country’s first leftist president, said the ammunition may have ended up in the hands of Colombian rebels or illegally sold to foreign criminal groups, such as Haitian gangs.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition were missing from two military bases in the South American country. (Photo by LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)
“The only way to explain these shortages is that there is a network of people within the military involved in the illegal arms trade,” Petro said.
Petro said he would continue inspections of military bases to “separate the military from all types of criminal organizations.”
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The investigation comes as Colombia and the FARC-EMC rebel group, which broke away from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia after Colombia signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, have resumed fighting in the country’s southwest.
Since being elected president in 2022, Petro has begun peace talks with some of the remaining rebel groups in the country. But while fighting between the government and rebels has decreased in some parts of the country, critics of the Petro regime say these forces continue to extort and kidnap civilians. They argue that the ceasefire that accompanied the peace talks has helped the rebels strengthen their position and increase their influence in local communities.
