BOGOTÁ, March 4, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Colombia's ELN guerrilla group on Monday freed three children and 19 other people, mainly civilians, held hostage in the coca-growing Catatumbo region since January, the South American country's rights watchdog said.

The hostages were handed over to a humanitarian group comprising representatives of the United Nations and the Catholic Church, the ombudsman's office said on X.

They had all been taken in the restive Catatumbo region near the border with Venezuela, where fighting between the ELN -- one of the biggest guerrilla groups still active in Colombia -- and dissidents of the disarmed FARC rebel army has displaced more than 55,000 people since mid-January.

More than 70 people are believed to have been killed in fighting that prompted President Gustavo Petro to call off peace talks with the ELN and send in the army.

Rival groups have for years been fighting in the region over control of the cocaine trade.

Two of the liberated hostages were ex-FARC fighters accused by the ELN of working with dissidents who refused to lay down arms under a 2016 peace deal.

With a force of about 5,800 combatants, the ELN is deeply involved in the drug trade and has become one of the region's most powerful organized crime groups.

Petro has claimed that Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel was the "head of the ELN" in Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producer.