“We have found 23 dead” in a rural area of the northeastern Arauca department, deputy defense minister Jairo Garcia said.
Duque blamed his counterpart Nicolas Maduro for harboring Colombian rebels on the Venezuelan side of the countries’ 2,200-kilometer (1,400 mile) border.
National Liberation Army (ELN) fighters and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who rejected a 2016 peace pact “have been operating at will in Venezuelan territory with the consent and protection of the dictatorial regime,” the president said.
Defense Minister Diego Molano said that in recent days, ELN rebels allied with a faction of FARC ex-combatants known as “Segunda Marquetalia” clashed with two other dissident groups.