Long ravaged by poverty and neglect, the port city of Buenaventura on Colombia’s Pacific coast now also grapples with the daily horrors of a relentless and escalating war between rival drug gangs.

Every day in the afternoon, shops close their shutters and the streets empty as residents flee to safety before nightfall.

Those who can lock themselves behind iron gates. Others take refuge in huts on stilts or zinc shacks that stand in stagnant water and dirt along the unlit, potholed roads.

“We are witnessing a new urban and territorial war” in Buenaventura, Juan Manuel Torres of the Colombian Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation told AFP.

“The situation is very violent and out of control,” he said, as gangs “Shottas” and “Spartanos” battle for dominance in the mainly Afro-Colombian community.

With a population of nearly 400,000, Buenaventura killed 576 people in the five years from 2017 to 2021 – one of the highest homicide rates for a city in one of the world’s most violent countries.

Last year, the city recorded 50 “enforced disappearances” in a vicious campaign of intimidation and extortion spearheaded by the gangs.

When AFP visited, the fear was palpable as police cautiously patrolled, guns drawn and aimed at the ramshackle buildings that lined the plastic-strewn streets.

During the night, an escorted hearse arrived to collect a bullet-riddled body that had been left in the open.

Violence is reported almost daily in Buenaventura’s run-down John XXIII neighborhood.

It was here that gangs armed with automatic weapons clashed for several hours on August 30 in what the press dubbed the “Night of Terror.”

“The authorities in the neighborhoods are the Shottas and Spartanos,” said Buenaventura Bishop Ruben Dario Jaramillo.

“You are stronger than the government; residents have no choice but to submit,” he told AFP.

According to Torres, what is happening in Buenaventura indicates “a total failure of the state”.

This has allowed the gangs, he said, “to steal the populace and recruit children with no future” in a city where 43 percent of the population is destitute and one in three is unemployed.

Neighborhood activist Wilmar Valencia Orozco said people were too scared to leave their homes — even more their immediate neighborhoods.

The most dangerous parts are the “invisible borders” between areas controlled by one gang or another.

“Young people with no history (with the gangs) are kidnapped and killed just because they live in a certain neighborhood,” Orozco said.

The Shottas and Spartanos emerged in late 2020 after a predecessor cartel called “La Local” split in two.

Both have ties to armed groups fighting for control of illegal mining, drug cultivation and smuggling routes in the vast Colombian jungle.

“The backbone of their business (the gangs) is drug trafficking. Then the micro trade, the extortion… and now the legal trade,” said Jaramillo, the priest.

According to Torres, the gangs recently took over Buenaventura’s grocery business: “Eggs, cheese, fruit … no staple escapes them,” he said.

A doctor who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals pointed out the many empty shops.

“A lot of retailers had to close. If you don’t pay, they’ll kill you,” he explained.

“In Buenaventura, the law of the gangs applies!”

A shopkeeper said he had to raise prices as the gangsters extorted more and more protection money.

A taxi driver said, “There are two taxes here, official tax and road tax.

Authorities say the Shottas and Spartanos each have between 400 and 600 members, up to 1,000 if you count the inmates.

A key focus of their dispute is the waterways that criss-cross the city and provide access to Buenaventura Bay for easy transportation of drugs, said military official Lt. Col. Samuel Aguilar.

Soldiers and police stationed in the city face an uphill battle.

“Both gangs have huge logistics and lots of little hands, ‘flies,'” Aguilar said of the kids who do chores for the gangsters and provide a distraction.

“We can’t be everywhere at once,” the official added.

Colombia’s first left-wing President Gustavo Petro has expressed concern about the “serious situation of violence” in Buenaventura, which he blamed on decades of state neglect.

Petro visited the city this month as part of his “Total Peace” campaign, which involves offering gang members an alternative to jail time if they turn themselves in.

Both gangs signaled a willingness to negotiate, the president said afterwards.

“It’s a chance for them not to die or end up in prison,” Torres said of the prospects of surrender.

Activist Orozco added: “They are tired of killing each other and hiding. They just want to be able to enjoy their money.”