Ecuador and Colombia traded sharply worded claims about alleged cross-border strikes and the security situation along their shared border on Tuesday, as their tariff dispute continued to deepen. Ecuador’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, said her government’s actions have targeted irregular groups that entered Ecuador from Colombia and were located inside Ecuadorian territory, adding that Ecuador rejected having carried out operations in Colombian soil.
The exchange began after Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, speaking the previous night, said a bomb appeared to have been dropped from an airplane very near the Ecuador border. Petro said the finding matched his suspicions that Ecuador had been bombarding Colombia and that the groups responsible were not those armed groups themselves. He did not provide evidence at the time, but he said he would later release a video and also asked U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene with Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, adding that the two countries should not go to war.
Sommerfeld, consulted by the television network Teleamazonas, responded by describing the operating picture as one of attacks in Ecuador against “grupos irregulares” that she said were not Ecuadorian, but instead crossed the border from Colombia and were positioned in Ecuador. She said Ecuador did not want a war, but warned that the country would not allow criminal groups to keep “developing, growing, intimidating the (Ecuadorian) population and creating violence.”
Noboa replied publicly on X, telling Petro that his statements were false and that Ecuador was “acting in our territory, not yours.” Noboa added that Ecuador would continue “bombardeando los lugares que servían de escondite” for those groups—describing them as largely Colombian groups that he said had been allowed to infiltrate Ecuador through what he framed as his counterpart’s border shortcomings.
Petro, in turn, insisted on his Tuesday allegation, saying authorities had found “27 bodies calcinados” and arguing that the explanation did not seem credible. Petro wrote on X that “the bombs are on the ground near families,” and he said the families of the alleged victims had decided to replace illicit coca leaf crops with legal crops offered under his government.
Colombia’s President also called for an in-depth investigation into the incident. He pointed to a report from RTVC, a state-run channel, where a photograph of an explosive device was shown in the ground in a rural area, without identifying the location in the account. Colombia’s defense minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the government deployed troops to secure the area, verify the device, and determine its possible destruction.
The dispute over alleged strikes unfolded against the background of a broader confrontation that has also been playing out through trade measures. The AFP?—the cluster indicates the quarrel began earlier in the year after Noboa raised accusations that the Colombian government had failed to act against drug trafficking and illegal entry from Colombia, as well as citing a commercial deficit of about $850 million.
Ecuador increased tariffs on Colombian products at the end of the month, first to 30% for all goods and then to 50%, framing the changes as a “security rate.” Colombia denied border negligence and said it had deployed around 11,000 troops to the sector, then responded with reciprocal tariffs. Businesses, merchants, and transporters have said the back-and-forth has left them caught in the conflict and severely affected.
Hours before Petro’s accusation, Ecuador said it would start a dialogue with Colombia to seek a solution to the tariff crisis within the framework of the Andean Community of Nations. The Catholic Church also urged the governments of both countries to strengthen dialogue, saying it sought the well-being of border communities and warning about an “expansion of illicit economies,” including drug trafficking, illegal mining, and smuggling.