section_path: Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  The Catatumbo campaign has been an ongoing period of strategic violence between militia faction groups in the region since January 2018 and a part of the war on drugs; it was developed after a 2016 peace agreement between the country's government (under the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as an attempt to end the Colombian conflict. The existence of the campaign was officially announced in August 2019 after a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigation. Colombian media reports that the campaign has directly affected an estimated 145,000 people, with HRW estimating this at 300,000.