Bogotá: Nine people have been killed in clashes between two Colombian rebel groups, a regional governor quoted by western media as saying on Monday.
Governor Wilinton Rodriguez of the eastern Arauca department said that five people, including a teenage girl were injured in the fighting between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the FARC guerrilla group.
The governor did not mention about the loyalties of the dead or injured.
ELN intensifies attacks
The ELN and the dissident so-called Central General Staff have been involved in recent clashes in Puerto Rondon near the Venezuela border.
Recently the ELN had stopped a fourth round of peace talks with the government in Venezuela following a statement of the leftist President Gustavo Petro about possibility of talks with FARC dissidents to restore peace.
The ELN was launched as a leftist ideological movement in 1964 before turning to criminal activities, like abductions, extortion, violent attacks and drug trafficking in Colombia and Venezuela.
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It has 5,800 combatants; the group is active in the Pacific region and along the 2,200-kilometer border with Venezuela.
Official figures show the ELN has a presence in more than 200 municipalities where fighting has displaced communities.
For more than five-decades Columbia has witnessed conflict between the government and leftist guerrillas, drug cartels and other criminal groups.
Mainly the Arauca department, center for the drug trafficking and illegally mined minerals has been the scene of violent clashes.
