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Firefighters try to tackle a wildfire burning on Chios island, Greece, June 23, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Wildfires in Greece, Shootings at Gaza aid point, and more
400: Over 400 firefighters were deployed to the Greek Island of Chios on Tuesday, as wildfires rage there for a third straight day. While the cause is still unknown, officials declared a state of emergency on Sunday, forcing hundreds of villagers to evacuate.
25: Israeli forces reportedly killed at least 25 Palestinians at an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, per hospitals and witnesses in the area. These appear to be the latest killings at US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites, which began operations in Gaza in late May.
40: More than 40 people were killed in an attack at a hospital in Sudan’s West Kordofan over the weekend, near the frontline between the Sudanese Army and the rebel paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces. Sudan’s civil war has been ongoing since April 2023.
57: The Colombian military has freed 57 soldiers from captivity, days after they were captured by locals residing in the southwestern Cauca region, an area that produces much cocaine. The country’s defense minister blamed rebel groups linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for their kidnapping.
Arauca, Colombia.- The photo shows the site of an attack with explosive devices at a military base located in Puerto Jordán in the department of Arauca, Colombia on September 17, 2024. The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said that "a peace process" that his Government until now maintained with the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN) is closed, after the attack that left two soldiers dead and 26 wounded in Arauca.
Colombia to declare emergency over rebel violence
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Monday he will declare a state of emergency after guerilla attacks by the ELN in the northeast of the country killed at least 80 people and forced over 11,000 to flee. The attacks came after Petro suspended negotiations with the rebels on Friday and could prove a fatal blow to his dovish “Total Peace” policy, which aims to end armed violence in Colombia through dialogue.
Background: Colombia’s internal conflict dates back decades but reached an inflection point in 1964, when two left-wing guerilla groups, the ELN and FARC, rebelled against the government. Throughout the 1960s, neither the government nor the guerrilla groups could gain an upper hand, but instability allowed drug cartels exporting to the US to become obscenely wealthy — and well-armed — worsening the violence.
Left-wing groups splintered repeatedly, while wealthy landowners organized self-defense forces that sometimes morphed into far-right death squads. US attempts to aid its key South American ally added more guns and money to the volatile mix, which has killed at least 450,000 people.
The hard line. Petro’s emergency declaration is a callback to the days of his predecessor and political rival Álvaro Uribe, who used emergencies to raise war taxes to fight the insurrectionists and cartels. Petro — a former guerilla — heavily criticized Uribe’s tactics, but the national reconciliation process he put forward instead looks like it’s falling apart. Where the conservatives managed to sign a peace agreement with the FARC in 2016 that has largely held up, the 2023 ceasefire Petro signed with the ELN is in tatters — and he is sending troops back in.