Two informed sources told Reuters that "the infamous leader of a faction of former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, Ivan Marquez, who returned to arms after a peace deal with the Colombian government, has died in Venezuela." Although most members of the FARC group were demobilized under the agreement made in 2016, which ended the group's involvement in a conflict that lasted about 60 years in the country, two main factions rejected the agreement and continued, according to security forces, to engage in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
A source close to the Segunda Marquetalia faction stated on Thursday: "The information provided by the group is that he died in a hospital in Caracas, where he was receiving medical care for serious injuries sustained in an attack in Venezuela at the end of June 2022." Security sources indicated that the attack on Marquez, whose real name is Luciano Marin Arango, may have been orchestrated by Ivan Mordisco, the leader of a rival faction splintered from FARC.
The Colombian Minister of Defense pointed out to reporters that "there is currently no official information regarding Marquez's death." Marquez was one of the negotiators of the agreement, but he abandoned it just two years later in 2018 after the arrest of a relative and their extradition to the United States. Marquez later became the leader of Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC rebels that returned to armed combat.
