The jailed bosses of the two largest gangs from Barranquilla announced a truce in the turf war that has killed hundreds in Colombia’s largest Caribbean port city since 2021.

Jorge Eliecer Diaz of “Los Coste??os” and Digno Jose Palomino of “Los Pepes” signed the truce in Bogota’s La Picota prison on Thursday.

The document was also signed by Camilo Andres Pineda, a delegate of the president’s Peace Commissioner’s Office, who told public television network RTVC that the deal was the result of months of negotiations between the government and the gangs.

According to the document, Diaz and Palomino agreed to a “relevant roadmap and commitments aimed at defusing violence, providing reparations to victims, and submitting ourselves to the law with the criminal structures with which we carry out criminal activities in Barranquilla” and the surrounding Atlantico province.

The process in Barranquilla will be a part of the government’s Total Peace program, which already includes urban peace processes in the cities of Medellin, Quibdo and Buenaventura.

Promises made by the Barranquilla gangs

• Uphold a truce, including the cessation of violent criminal activities and extortion practices until at least January 20 next year
• Refrain from using dance parties as a means to exercise territorial control
• Call on other gangs to join the urban peace process

In a response, President Gustavo Petro said that “dismantling urban gangs is today the main pacification policy in the country.”

The turf war between Los Pepes, Los Coste??os and smaller gangs is closely related to the control of Barranquilla’s container port and drug trafficking routes along the Caribbean coast.

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Mafia wars are soaring violence in Colombia???s Caribbean port cities

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Earlier this year, the government announced similar demobilization negotiations with paramilitary organizations EGC from Uraba and ACSN from Santa Marta.

The Caribbean gangs and paramilitary organizations control virtually all of the drug trade in northern Colombia, often in coordination with transnational drug trafficking organizations from Mexico and Europe.