Oil protests turn deadly as 79 police taken hostage, 2 people killed

Protests in Colombia turned violent after residents took 79 police officers hostage and two people died in clashes.

Residents of Colombia’s southern Caquetá province blocked off the premises of Emerald Energy, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned Sinochem. They also took nine oil field workers hostage along with dozens of police officers.

The protesters have demanded help to repair and build new roads in the area. A police officer, Ricardo Monroe, and a civilian died during the blockade. President Gustavo Petro condemned the killings in a statement on Twitter.

Petro said, “We have a popular movement that, with its exclusion and the influence of groups that want to destroy this government and involve Colombia in war, has killed a young policeman.”

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Officers from Colombia’s human rights ombudsman speak to protesters Thursday while police sit-in, who according to officials, belong to rural and indigenous communities and are demanding that the oil company Emerald Energy in San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia Build roads. (Colombian Ombudsman Office / Handout via Reuters)

“I expect criminals to unilaterally absolve government officials before there is a new escalation in violence,” he said, adding that the attorney general’s office should investigate the killings.

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Violence erupted in part of the San Vicente del Caguas municipality, where members of rural and indigenous communities blocked access to the oil field and set fires. According to police sources, both the victims died of gunshot wounds.

Police sit next to officials of the Colombian Human Rights Ombudsman during talks with protesters in San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia, on Thursday. (Colombian Ombudsman Office / Handout via Reuters)

Colombian officials paid tribute to Monroe on Twitter, writing that he “offered his life in the line of duty.”

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Colombia’s human rights ombudsman Carlos Carmargo remained at the site to mediate with the protesters, saying he stopped them from throwing more Molotov cocktails at the oil facility.

A view of the facilities of the Emerald Energy oil company in Los Pozos, Caqueta Department, Colombia, on November 3, 2014. (Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)

Protests regularly occur in areas around oil and mining projects in Colombia as communities push for companies to build infrastructure, including roads and schools.

The country’s officials have expressed concern that a dissident group of FARC rebels, which rejected a 2016 peace deal, could become active in the region and fuel unrest. The US delisted FARC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2021, arguing that the group “does not exist as a unified organization engaging in terrorism.”

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Petro separately demanded an investigation of his own son and brother for alleged corruption, the BBC reported, but he did not specify the charges, saying only that “My government will not give benefits to criminals in exchange for bribes. ”

Reuters contributed to this report.