Peru's president affirms sovereignty of Amazon River island as tensions with Colombia escalate

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Friday traveled to an Amazon River island at the center of a territorial dispute with Colombia, where she affirmed Peru’s unquestionable sovereignty over the territory.

The first visit from Boluarte to the island comes against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions with Colombia, whose president, Gustavo Petro, recently disavowed Peruvian jurisdiction over Santa Rosa Island.

Security force chiefs and members of Parliament welcomed Boluarte and Cabinet ministers to the territory, where she sang the Peruvian national anthem as people waved red-and-white flags.

“Unfortunately, for several days now, unacceptable actions have been taking place that affect the brotherhood that unites our two nations and the border communities,” Boluarte said. “Peru’s sovereignty is not in dispute; the district of Santa Rosa de Loreto is Peruvian and will remain so.”

Tensions between the neighboring countries escalated Tuesday, when Peruvian police arrested three Colombian men who were on the island doing land surveying work. Colombia’s government on Thursday demanded the immediate release of the men after a Peruvian judge freed one of them but ordered the other two remain in jail for seven days while authorities investigate them for the alleged crime of attacking national sovereignty.

Petro described the arrests as a “kidnapping.” His government has said the detainees — a land surveyor and a boat driver — were conducting studies to measure the depth of bodies of water for a pier expansion in the Colombian border city of Leticia. Peruvian authorities said the workers were not authorized to carry out the measurements.

The arrest of the two Colombians marks the third binational incident in the area since Petro denied Peru’s jurisdiction over Santa Rosa Island on Aug. 5. Two days later, a Colombian military aircraft flew over the island, and on Monday, the former mayor of the Colombian city of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, planted a Colombian flag there. Police later removed the flag.

About 3,000 people live in tiny Santa Rosa Island, which emerged in the middle of the Amazon River last century.

Peru maintains it owns Santa Rosa Island based on treaties about a century old, but Colombia disputes that ownership because the island had not yet emerged from the river at the time.

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