CARACAS — Venezuela's army attacked Colombian leftist rebels camped on its side of the border, leaving several people dead, an NGO told AFP on Saturday.

 

Friday's attack marked the first time that Venezuela, ruled by socialists for decades until Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in January, has attacked National Liberation Army (ELN) forces camped inside Venezuela, said Javier Tarazona, director of an NGO called Fundaredes.

 

The NGO shared a video which showed bodies lying on the ground, trees knocked down and the ruins of what appeared to be a camp site in a rural area of Venezuela's Apure state.

 

A Fundaredes staff member counted at least nine bodies, Tarazona said.

 

The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

 

The ELN has been the most powerful rebel group in Latin America since the FARC guerrilla army signed a peace accord with the Bogota government in 2016.

 

Colombia and Venezuela share a more than 2,000-kilometer border where other rebel groups also operate, such as FARC holdout factions that rejected the peace accord and are now fighting each other to control cocaine trafficking and illegal mining operations.

 

For many years the Bogota government accused leftist Venezuela of granting safe haven to Colombian rebels.

 

But now Venezuela is governed under the close watch and control of the Trump administration after the ouster of Maduro, as the United States seeks to cash in on Venezuela's vast oil wealth and other natural resources.

 

Local people in Apure reported Friday's army attack and said there could be another 10 ELN fighters dead, said Rocio San Miguel, a human rights activist who specializes in military affairs.