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Colombians in Santa Marta stay inside after violence wracks the city / Photo: © AFP
Colombians in Santa Marta stay inside after violence wracks the city
Stores and schools closed and drivers mostly stayed off the roads Wednesday as the Colombian city of Santa Marta limped back to normal after a wave of drug-gang violence prompted a deployment of army troops.
Authorities urged businesses in the touristy Caribbean city to open their doors after attacks by gang members subsided, but to no avail as locals remained fearful of further chaos.
The self-styled Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN), an armed group with roots in Colombia's now-defunct paramilitary movement, lashed out following the killing of its second-in-command by official forces.
"People are afraid to go out," Nicolas Diaz, a 60-year-old taxi driver whose union halted work after the attacks, told AFP.
Colombia's new right-wing President Abelardo de la Espriella ordered the initial attack on the ACSN.
The US-backed millionaire has gone to war against Colombia's myriad drug-trafficking groups since taking office last month.
On Tuesday, ACSN gunmen opened fire on businesses and set fire to vehicles in a bid to shut down a city where the gang has rampantly extorted money from businesses.
De la Espriella reacted to the flare-up in violence by deploying troops to the city on the outskirts of Tayrona National Park, a popular tourist destination overlooking the Caribbean.
On Tuesday night, he travelled to Santa Marta to oversee the security operation, dressed in khaki green with a pistol on his hip.
The tough-talking right-winger vowed to send ACSN members "to hell in a body bag."
The city's mayor Carlos Pinedo said Wednesday on Caracol Radio that at least 500 soldiers and 600 police officers had been deployed.
He said the city had been bracing for violence after De la Espriella announced Tuesday that the security forces had killed 13 ACSN "narcoterrorists" in an operation by the police and air force in the mountains above Santa Marta.
In the end, Pinedo said, the disturbances were "minimal."
- 'It could be my turn' -
But residents and business owners expressed fear and uncertainty over the security situation, amid rumors that the ACSN had ordered a three-day curfew.
Store owner Fernando Diaz said a "heavy atmosphere" hung over Santa Marta.
"They shot up little shops just like mine," said Diaz, 58. "At any moment, it could be my turn."
Nine people were arrested over Tuesday's violence, authorities said.
De la Espriella, a US-backed millionaire lawyer, narrowly won June's presidential run-off as a hardline law-and-order candidate.
He has ordered a barrage of airstrikes on guerrilla camps and made a habit of holding press conferences next to the corpses of slain gunmen laid out in body bags.
A judge on Wednesday cancelled an earlier order to temporarily hide some of the contentious content on Meta social media platforms.
The ACSN is one of many armed groups that De la Espriella's leftist predecessor Gustavo Petro had engaged in failed peace talks.
De la Espriella has broken off the talks and vowed to crush the groups militarily.
A. Williams--BTZ
