The shooter, supposedly from the ELN, fired repeatedly at a troop of soldiers
A professional soldier of the Army of Colombia was killed by a sniper in the midst of an armed harassment of the troops that carried out registration and control work in a rural area of the Colombian town of San Calixto, military sources reported this Thursday.
The Rapid Deployment Force No.3, a unit attached to the Second Division of the Army, said in a statement that the soldiers were harassed with shots from a sniper allegedly from the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla in the La Taya hamlet, which is part of San Calixto (Norte de Santander). Product of “this criminal action” died the professional soldier Jhony Alexander Salazar, who was injured and taken to a hospital in the area where he died. This murder follows that of a policeman who was shot by a sniper in events that occurred in a rural area of the municipality of Sardinata.
Sardinata and San Calixto are part of Catatumbo, a region that covers 10,089 square kilometers, mostly jungle, in Norte de Santander. Other municipalities that make up Catatumbo are Ábrego, El Tarra, Tibú, El Carmen, Convención, Teorama, Hacarí and La Playa. In the region, one of the areas where there are the most coca crops in the country, there is a presence of the ELN and FARC dissidents, as well as a stronghold of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) and other gangs that are fighting over each other. corridors for drug trafficking and illicit crops.