Authorities at Cartagena’s international airport apprehended a 40-year-old man attempting to transport 220 grams of cocaine under his toupee while preparing to board a flight to Amsterdam.
The concealed drugs, worth €10,000, were detected during a security scan, leading to his arrest. Officials disclosed that he had a history of drug trafficking offenses.
Since 2013, Colombia has experienced a continuous rise in cocaine production, with coca cultivation increasing by 10% and potential cocaine output soaring by 53% in 2023.
Despite the 2016 peace accord between the government and FARC rebels, smaller armed groups have taken advantage of the power void, exacerbating the drug trade.
Argentina secured their record 16th Copa America title by defeating Colombia, but the match faced significant delays due to disturbances outside the Miami venue.
The kick-off was pushed back by 80 minutes as trouble erupted with ticketless fans trying to force their way into the Hard Rock Stadium.
This chaos left many fans waiting in the Miami heat, and clashes with police resulted in several arrests and some supporters needing medical attention.
On the field, Lautaro Martinez netted the decisive goal in the second half of extra time from a Giovani Lo Celso assist.
The match had few clear chances, with Colombia’s Jhon Cordoba hitting the woodwork in the first half. Argentina thought they had scored with 15 minutes remaining, but Nicolas Tagliafico’s goal was ruled out for offside.
Lionel Messi, who was forced to leave the game midway through the second half due to an injury, was in tears but celebrated Argentina’s third consecutive major tournament win at the final whistle.
The half-time break was also extended to 25 minutes due to a concert by Colombian popstar Shakira, which was criticized by Colombia’s manager Nestor Lorenzo.
Despite the interruptions and challenging conditions,Martinez emerged as the hero and secured the Golden Boot with five goals in the tournament.
Argentina triumphed over Colombia to secure a record 16th Copa America title, but the victory was overshadowed by chaotic scenes outside the Hard Rock Stadium, causing an 80-minute delay to the kick-off.
Lautaro Martinez emerged as the hero for Argentina, scoring the decisive goal in the second half of extra time from a through ball by Giovani Lo Celso. The dramatic win was bittersweet as captain Lionel Messi, who had to be substituted midway through the second half due to an injury, was seen in tears but later celebrated his country’s third successive major tournament win at the final whistle.
The start of the match was significantly delayed due to turmoil outside the stadium. Organizers reported that ticketless fans attempted to storm the venue, leading to clashes with police and security personnel. Several arrests were made, and numerous supporters required medical attention from paramedics after waiting for hours in the Miami heat.
Adding to the disruption, the half-time break was extended to 25 minutes to accommodate a performance by Colombian popstar Shakira, a decision criticized by Colombia’s head coach, Nestor Lorenzo.
The match itself was tightly contested in hot and humid conditions, yielding few clear opportunities. Colombia came closest in the first half when Jhon Cordoba’s shot struck the woodwork. Argentina thought they had taken the lead with 15 minutes remaining, but Nicolas Tagliafico’s effort was disallowed for offside. Ultimately, Martinez’s goal not only clinched the title for Argentina but also earned him the Golden Boot with five goals in the tournament.
This victory adds to Messi’s illustrious career, marking his third international tournament win in three years, following the 2021 Copa America and the 2022 World Cup. Despite his impressive achievements, Messi’s future in international football remains uncertain. At 37, his performances have shown signs of decline, with his only goal in this tournament coming in the semi-final win over Canada. He also missed a crucial penalty in the quarter-final shootout against Ecuador and had to leave the pitch due to an ankle injury during the final.
The final also marked the end of Angel Di Maria’s international career, as the veteran announced his retirement from international football after 145 caps.
The pre-match delays were another blow for organizers, especially with the Hard Rock Stadium scheduled to host games during the 2026 World Cup. The incidents in Miami followed similar scenes in the semi-finals in Charlotte, where Uruguay players clashed with Colombia fans over concerns for their families’ safety.
Roberto Garnacho, brother of Argentina winger Alejandro Garnacho, expressed his frustration on social media, stating, “What a shame CONMEBOL, the families not being able to enter the stadium, unbelievable. We were with [Argentina defender Marcos Acuna’s] family outside, getting away from the fights… Argentina’s security had to come get us, children of players crying, people entering without tickets.”
Colombia, which had been unbeaten in 28 games dating back to a World Cup qualifier against Argentina, fell short in their quest for a second Copa America title, their only triumph remaining the 2001 success on home soil. Despite several chances, including Cordoba’s early effort that hit the post, they could not find a way past the resilient Argentine defense.
As Argentina celebrates another historic victory, the chaotic scenes in Miami raise questions about the organization and security measures for future international tournaments.
Liverpool striker Darwin Núñez was at the center of a heated altercation with spectators after Uruguay’s defeat to Colombia in the Copa America semi-final on Wednesday evening.
The incident occurred at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, as Núñez was seen physically confronting Colombia fans in the stands shortly after the final whistle.
Reports from Uruguayan outlet El País indicate that the disorder erupted near the section where friends and family members of the Uruguay team were seated. Núñez, who has yet to comment publicly on the incident, was captured by TV cameras and fans climbing railings and entering the crowded stands to confront Colombia supporters. Attempts were made by others to restrain him during the confrontation.
Just a normal man protecting his family & children.
Anyone who is slating that doesn’t have a clue or is a fanny.
Uruguay captain José María Giménez stated that the players felt compelled to defend their families, describing the chaotic scene in the crowd as a “disaster.” Giménez remarked, “There was no police, and we had to defend our families. This is the fault of two or three people who had a few too many drinks and don’t know how to drink.”
🚨 WOW! Crazy scenes last night as Darwin Nunez is seen jumping into the stands to protect his family from Colombian fans! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/evVYu9rfNC
Other Uruguay players were reportedly involved in the incident as well. Núñez was later seen embracing his son on the pitch following the altercation.
South American football’s governing body, CONMEBOL, has “strongly condemned” the incident and announced an investigation. “There is no place for intolerance and violence on and off the field,” the organization stated.
The brawl followed Uruguay’s 1-0 defeat to Colombia, which ended their hopes of reaching the Copa America final. Just before the crowd disorder, players and coaching staff from both teams clashed on the pitch as the match concluded. Núñez, who started the game for Uruguay, was unable to capitalize on any of his four goal attempts.
Liverpool acquired Núñez from Portuguese side Benfica in June 2022 for an initial fee of £64 million. Since joining the Premier League club, he has scored 20 goals in 65 appearances. BBC News has reached out to Núñez’s representative for a statement.
Colombia will face Argentina in the Copa America final on Monday.
The bill wants to stop bullfights within three years, so they would be illegal by 2028. The Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has always been against these events, now needs to sign the new law.
Bullfighting started in Spain and is still allowed in a few countries like France, Portugal, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico.
It used to be a big show that lots of TV channels showed live. Many people now think it’s wrong to make animals suffer for entertainment, so the tradition is being questioned.
“This ban is a big win for groups that have been working to change society and stop violence against animals,” said Terry Hurtado, who is an animal rights supporter and city council member in Cali. He has been leading protests against bullfights since the 1990s. “I’m happy that in Colombia, bulls and horses won’t be hurt in bullfights anymore and kids won’t see it happening. ”
In bullfights, a matador goes against bulls that are specially raised to be mean and aggressive. The matador waves a red cape at the bull and then stabs it with a sword after it has already been hurt with other weapons and is tired from running in circles.
Fans of bullfighting said that stopping it is an attack on the rights of a small group of people and will cause issues for cities that make money from these events.
Petro has already strongly spoken out against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked to support South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
“Today, the president of our country has decided that we will stop talking to Israel starting tomorrow. ” Petro told people in Bogota that he wants a government with a president who is not genocidal. He was speaking on International Worker’s Day and people marched to support his social and economic reforms.
Countries can’t just ignore what’s happening in Gaza, he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Petro is against Jewish people and filled with hatred. He also said that Petro’s action was a way of rewarding the group Hamas, which attacked Israeli military bases and communities on Oct 7. Bolivia stopped talking to Israel at the end of October last year. Other countries in Latin America, like Colombia, Chile, and Honduras, also brought their ambassadors back.
Petro said the army found lots of bullets, grenades, and missiles were stolen from two military bases this month.
Petro, the first president from the left-wing party, said the bullets could have been taken by Colombian rebel groups or sold illegally to criminal groups in other countries, like gangs in Haiti.
“The reason these things are missing is because there are groups of people in the military who are trading weapons illegally,” said Petro.
Petro said that they will keep checking military bases to make sure there are no criminal groups involved with the armed forces.
The investigation is happening because Colombia is fighting again in the southwest of the country. They are fighting against a rebel group called FARC-EMC, which split from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia after the peace deal with the government in 2016.
Petro started talking to some rebel groups after he became president in 2022. In some parts of the country, there is less fighting between the government and rebel groups. But critics of the Petro administration say these groups still threaten and take people for ransom. They believe that the peace talks has helped the rebels become stronger and gain more control over communities.
The mayor of Colombia‘s second biggest city banned prostitution in some popular areas for six months to stop children from being sexually exploited.
The Mayor of Medellín, Federico Gutiérrez, said in a meeting with reporters that a rule will be put into action in the Provenza and El Poblado neighborhoods. These areas have a lot of popular bars and clubs and are visited by many tourists.
The area is now popular with sex workers who are looking for clients from other countries. They walk around the streets to find them. The mayor said that bad people are taking young people to these neighborhoods and making them do sex work.
“We need to take back control of this place,” Gutiérrez said. “We must also make sure to keep the community safe. ”
In Colombia, it’s okay for adults to do sex work if they agree to it. Colombian laws allow city governments to temporarily stop this activity in certain parts of the city if it is considered dangerous for public safety.
The Medellin prostitution ban was put in place because an American man was found with two local girls who were 12 and 13 years old in a hotel room. This was a big story in the local news.
The 36-year-old was kept by the police for 12 hours, then let go while officials looked into the situation. The local newspapers said that he left Colombia and went to Florida.
Gutiérrez asked Colombian authorities to investigate faster at Monday’s news conference.
“He said it’s disappointing that so many people think they can do whatever they want in MedellÃn. ”
Prostitution has increased in Medellín because more and more tourists are visiting the city for its nice weather, cheap prices, and fun parties.
In January, the government warned people about the dangers of using dating apps in Medellin. This was because eight Americans had been killed there in the past two months.
The warning said that bad people were using dating apps to trick people into going to hotels, restaurants, and bars where they were given drugs, taken away, or stolen from.
The accident occurred in the village of La Montanita in Colombia on Wednesday morning. It involved a regular public bus and a private bus.
Alexia Mejia, who speaks for the 911 system in western Honduras, said that all the people who were hurt or killed were on the small bus and are from Honduras. The big bus was not carrying anyone.
Out of the 14 injured people, four were badly hurt and taken to a hospital in San Pedro Sula by helicopter. The others went to the hospital in the west.
A person from the hospital said that two of the injured people have died, including a child. Pictures from the scene show several bodies covered with sheets lying on the road in front of the damaged vehicles.
People who saw the accident said that both buses were going at a moderate speed on a winding, hilly road when they crashed.
The big bus had the driver and one passenger on it. They were coming back from the Agua Caliente customs post at the Guatemala border after dropping off a group of migrants.
The little bus was crowded with people.
Every year, lots of people from South America travel through Honduras on their way to the United States.
Xiomara Castro, who is the president of a country in Central America, said that she was very sad to hear about the crash. She sent her sympathy to the families of the people who died.
Car crashes are the second leading cause of death in Honduras, right after murders.
A woman named Blanco had people killed because she didn’t like how they looked at her. She was a very cruel criminal leader and everyone was afraid of her in Miami during the 1970s and 80s.
The famous drug leader is now being portrayed in a Hollywood movie. Sofía Vergara from Modern Family is teaming up with the people who made Narcos to play the head of the criminal world.
The new series with exciting action scenes and lots of flashy, rich people was released on Netflix on Thursday. Griselda describes the criminal as a clever and determined woman who has faced a lot of hardships.
The real story of the woman known as the “cocaine godmother” and who killed her three husbands is not very clear.
Blanco was born in Colombia in 1943 and started doing bad things when she was 11. She supposedly killed a rich boy after she took him and his parents wouldn’t give her money to let him go.
In 1964, when she was 21 years old, she moved to New York with her husband and three children without permission and started selling marijuana.
“It’s important to remember who Griselda was when she was young. ” She was a person who moved to a new country and was taking care of three children all by herself. Vergara, who was also born in Colombia, said she had no education or tools to survive.
Eric Newman, the person in charge of the show, said he wanted to make the character of Griselda Blanco more relatable. He said that everyone has reasons for their actions, even if they’re not excuses. He also wanted to show her as a single mother who had to run away from a bad relationship, which can be understandable for some people.
She is a woman in a world mostly dominated by men. She works much harder to prove herself and uses her cleverness and smarts to outdo the men around her. “People begin to support her,” said co-director Andrés Baiz.
‘Having power turned her into a terrible person. ‘
In 1970, Blanco told someone to kill her first husband and she went to live in Miami. She met her second husband, Alberto Bravo, who was involved in drug trafficking. He showed her the even more dangerous side of the illegal drug world.
Blanco was very violent and bold in her drug smuggling. She would get young women to smuggle cocaine in their bras and underwear from Colombia to the US. Because of this, she quickly became the leader of the criminal operation.
As the fighting between drug gangs in Miami got worse, Blanco became more cruel. In 1975, she killed her husband because she thought he was taking her money. In 1983, she had her third husband killed after he took their child and left Miami.
Known as the Black Widow because of her mean and cruel actions, Blanco became very powerful and rich in the early 1980s. She was in charge of bringing 1. 5 tons of cocaine to the US every month and was one of the scariest women in the world.
Vergara told the media that he believes Griselda’s original plan was to protect and provide for her family when she moved to Miami. However, she got caught up in power and money which changed her into a bad person.
In the early 1980s, Blanco said no to a $15 million offer from a rival cartel to give up her empire.
Depended on outcasts.
Even though Blanco was in charge of the drug business in Miami for 20 years, she knew it was risky because she was a woman in a male-dominated industry. At one time, she let a man represent her business because local dealers would only make deals if a man was speaking for the business.
After getting arrested for a murder, Blanco decided to take charge of the business and used her position as an outsider to benefit herself.
From April to September 1980, about 135,000 Cubans moved to the US. The Marielitos, some of whom were already in criminal gangs, drug dealing, and murder.
Blanco took advantage of this and hired them to work for her. Her gang created a team of gunmen called Pistoleros, who became known for carrying out assassinations on motorcycles.
Baiz said that Blanco is an outsider who brings other outsiders together. In this industry, it’s hard to gain and keep trust, but Blanco knows what she’s doing.
These characters don’t fit in with society’s usual standards. Griselda makes people feel like they are part of her family, Baiz said.
Vergara liked Blanco because she also felt like a misfit and understood some of what she went through.
I am from Colombia, I am a mother and I moved to a new country. “As a woman, Griselda was judged. Now, I have to work extra hard and I get fewer opportunities because of my accent,” she said.
‘A woman can’t be this bad’
In the 1980s, Blanco’s criminal empire started to fall apart and she was arrested in Irvine, California, ending her time as a powerful criminal leader.
But how did she go 20 years making Miami her drug playground without getting caught. The show’s team says it’s because she’s a woman.
“Because she was a woman, she could do a lot and disappear when she needed to. No one would think a woman could run such a big criminal group. ” “Vergara said that people believe a woman could never be so wicked. ”
And even though men in charge of drug enforcement agencies were sure that a woman could not be involved in the drug trade, there was someone who was investigating that possibility.
In the 1970s, June Hawkins, a female analyst in the Miami police, was determined to catch Blanco, even though her colleagues didn’t take her seriously and only used her to translate Spanish.
Newman said that Hawkins is a very important part of the story. She is like Griselda, a young single mom of Latin background working in a world that doesn’t treat women well. She shows audiences that Griselda had other choices besides what she did.
What happened to Griselda Blanco.
On February 17, 1985, Blanco was taken from her home by the police and was found guilty of making, bringing, and giving out cocaine. She was also accused of three counts of the worst kind of murder and spent 20 years in prison.
While she was in prison, three of her sons died. After she was set free in 2004, she was sent back to Colombia and lived a calm life.
On September 3, 2012, at 69 years old, she was killed by a man on a motorbike in Medellín. The drive-by shooting was a copy of the way she used to kill people when she was in charge.
“Her murder shows how much people hated her. ” In 2012, she was a lonely woman who kept to herself, and three out of her four children had passed away,” Newman told the BBC.
Baiz said the story of the chain-smoking, gun-wielding killer is a “perfect pattern”.
She starts with nothing, has great success, but at the end of the story it’s a sad ending with complete loss.
Despite having a very interesting and powerful life story, Blanco is often not remembered in history books. Even Vergara, who grew up in Colombia during the time when drugs were being trafficked, said she had never heard of this woman. After learning about her life, she thought it was impossible that this was a true story.
“I wanted to play Griselda because of this. ” She does a lot of things at once: she is a mother, a villain, a lover, and a killer. She demonstrates better than anyone else how complicated people can be.
The Colombian Navy stopped a semi-submersible boat that had almost 800kg of cocaine on it. Some of the cocaine was marked with a scorpion symbol.
A 50-foot-long “narco-sub” was found in Colombian waters. It is the first one to be discovered this year.
The navy thinks the stuff they found is worth $27m (£21m) and thinks the submarine was on its way to the US or Europe.
Three individuals who were inside the vehicle have been taken into custody.
The navy stopped the underwater boat that was moving through the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.
On the ship, there were packages of cocaine with a scorpion image or labeled “Winnie” and “Carnal”.
The navy said the drugs and the people suspected of smuggling them were taken to Buenaventura, a port city in Colombia. More information about the suspects has not been given yet.
The Colombian Navy stopped drug trafficking organizations from getting almost $27 million by seizing the drugs. This prevented about two million doses from being sold on the streets around the world. The Colombian Navy shared a picture of the drug submarine.
Drug smuggling boats called narco-subs are a common way to secretly transport drugs. They can avoid being noticed and can be sunk in the water after delivering the drugs. They are usually made at home, using fibreglass and plywood.
Colombia makes the most cocaine in the world.
In 2023, the Colombian Navy found and stopped 30 tonnes of drugs and over five tonnes of marijuana.
In May of last year, the biggest drug-smuggling submarine ever found in Colombia was stopped with three tons of cocaine inside, as reported by CBS News, a partner of the BBC in the US. It was around 100 feet long and 10 feet wide.
The UN said that in 2022, Colombia made a lot of cocaine. They used a lot of coca leaves and spread them over a very big area.
Belgian officials found a lot of cocaine at the port of Antwerp last year. The port is now the main way drugs from South America enter Europe.
A big landslide in north-west Colombia has caused the death of at least 23 people and hurt about 30 others, according to local officials.
The road between Medellín and Quibdo was blocked by landslides, so many people had to stop and find shelter in a nearby house near the town of Carmen de Atrato, as told by a local official.
Another big pile of rocks and dirt fell onto the road, covering them and some cars.
The mayor of the town said that some people are still stuck under the rubble.
The area in Choco province near the Pacific Ocean has a lot of trees and has had a lot of rain in the last day.
Pictures on social media and TV showed cars wrecked and partly buried by mud and rocks.
Many people left their cars and went to a house near Carmen de Atrato, according to an official from the Choco governor’s office.
“Unfortunately, a big pile of rocks and dirt came down and covered them,” the official also said.
Colombian President Gustavo Preto promised to give all the support possible to the Choco region.
The mayor of Carmen de Atrato, Jaime Herrera, said on TV that some people were really hurt and others were still stuck under the mud. He didn’t say how many.
Colombia is in a dry spell right now, but before that, the country’s weather experts warned about heavy rain in some areas near the Pacific Ocean and the Amazon rainforest.
American travelers going to Colombia have been told not to use dating apps there because eight American tourists have died under strange circumstances in the past two months.
The US embassy in Bogota said that some people were given drugs and robbed after meeting others on these apps.
Things happened a lot in cities like Medellin, Cartagena, and Bogota where more American tourists are visiting.
Travellers should stay away from places that are remote and alone, like hotel rooms.
The embassy warned that criminals use apps to trick people into meeting them in public places like restaurants and bars. Then they hurt, steal from, and even kill their victims, sometimes the person they met.
In the last three months of 2023, the number of robberies of foreign visitors went up by 200% and deaths by 29%. Eight Americans also died between November 1st and December 31st.
One of the people hurt was Tou Ger Xiong, a 50-year-old comedian and activist from Minnesota who is Asian-American.
He went on a trip to Colombia at the end of November. While he was there, he met a woman online and went on a date with her. Unfortunately, he was then kidnapped and killed.
Xiong was kidnapped and stabbed to death more than twelve times by a group of men.
The actual number of people from other countries who were hurt by these crimes may be more than what the numbers show.
The embassy said that these crimes often don’t get reported because the victims feel ashamed and don’t want to go through with the legal process.
Those who try to stop a robbery are more likely to be killed, the warning said.
The EMC is a big group that separated from the Farc in Colombia. It includes rebels who didn’t stop fighting when the Farc made peace in 2016.
The news is good for Gustavo Petro’s government, which is working on making peace with the EMC.
Kidnappings for money have been increasing in Colombia this year.
The father of Liverpool footballer Luis Díaz was taken by force, but then let go.
Mr Díaz Snr and his wife were taken from their home in Barrancas, Colombia. This brought attention to the problem of kidnapping, which some criminals and rebel groups use to make money.
EMC announced on Tuesday that it’s a win for President Petro, who wants to bring “complete peace” to Colombia, but kidnappings for money may still happen.
The National Liberation Army (ELN) is a group in Colombia that kidnaps people for money. They are one of many criminal and rebel groups in Colombia that still continue to do this.
The Ombudsman’s office announced this week that 91 people are still being kept as hostages in different parts of the country.
A recent report from Colombia’s Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation shows that the number of people kidnapped in the first 10 months of this year is the highest it has been since 2016, the year the government made a peace deal with the Farc.
The EMC, which stands for Estado Mayor Central (Central General Command in Spanish), is the biggest rebel group that formed after the peace deal in 2016. It is estimated to have around 3,000 members.
It is most busy in the areas of Caquetá, Guaviare, Meta and Putumayo.
Talks with the EMC have been difficult. In May, President Petro stopped the peace agreement with the rebel group because they killed four indigenous teenagers who were forced to join the group and tried to escape.
The two sides started talking about peace again last month.
Just days after being released by his kidnappers, the father of Colombian striker Luis Díaz found himself in tears on Thursday as he witnessed his son score both goals in a 2-1 victory over Brazil in a World Cup qualifying match.
Decked in a Colombia jersey and a necklace, Luis Manuel Díaz fell onto the people beside him in the stands at the Metropolitano Stadium, shedding tears of joy alongside his wife, Cilenis Marulanda, during the celebration.
Luis Manuel Díaz had been held captive for 12 days in a mountainous region by the ELN guerrilla group before being reunited with his family on Tuesday.
“I thank God. He makes it all possible. We have always lived tough moments, but life makes you strong and brave. So is soccer and so is life,” Luis Díaz said after the match. “We deserved this victory.”
UNBELIEVABLE MOMENTS OUT OF COLOMBIA!
LUIS DIAZ SCORES TWO GOALS IN FIVE MINUTES TO TAKE THE LEAD OVER BRAZIL!
Díaz secured both goals with headers, the first in the 75th minute and the second in the 79th, marking Colombia’s first victory against Brazil in World Cup qualifying in 15 matches.
“He is a friend; he has suffered a lot these days. This is beyond soccer; he deserves it,” said Brazil goalkeeper Alisson, a teammate of Díaz at Liverpool.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it time after time, Hollywood cannot write scripts that come even close to our great sport of football.
From the depths of despair to the heights of triumph.
Armed men on motorcycles abducted Díaz’s parents from a gas station in the town of Barrancas on Oct. 28. His mother was rescued within hours by police, who set up roadblocks around the town of 40,000 people near the Venezuelan border.
Rebel group, the National Liberation Army of Colombia, has blamed the Colombian government for the delay in releasing Luis Diaz’s father, who was kidnapped over a week ago.
This comes after the National Liberation Army of Colombia pledged to expedite the return of Diaz Sr.
A statement, signed by unit leader Commander Jose Manuel Martinez Quiroz, noted that the group is not able to release its hostage due to the active operations of the Colombian army that threaten their security.
“On November 2, we informed the country of the decision to release Mr Luis Manuel Diaz, father of the player Luis Diaz.
“From that date, we began the process to accomplish this as soon as possible. We are making efforts to avoid incidents with government forces.
“The area is still militarised, they are carrying out flyovers, disembarking troops, broadcasting and offering rewards as part of an intense search operation.
Luis Diaz’s father is still being held by Colombian rebels
“This situation is not allowing for the execution of the release plan quickly and safely, where Mr Luis Manuel Diaz is not at risk.”
The statement added that “if operations continue in the area, they will delay the release and increase the risks.
The group noted that it shares the anguish of the affected family, “to whom we say that we will keep our word to release him unilaterally, as soon as we have security guarantees for the development of the liberation operation.”
Diaz made a significant impact for Liverpool when he entered the game as a substitute, scoring a late equalizing goal against Luton on Sunday. After his goal, he raised his shirt to reveal a heartfelt message that read “Libertad para Papa” (Freedom for dad).
The winger, who had been absent from the team since the kidnappings, subsequently took to Instagram to share an emotional message, urging for the release of his father.
Diaz scored a late equaliser against Luton on Sunday and used the moment to send a powerful message by revealing the words “freedom for papa” on his shirt.
After the game, Diaz further addressed the situation by posting a statement on Instagram, earnestly pleading for his father’s safe release.
“Every second, every minute, our anguish grows. My mother, my brothers and I are desperate, distressed and without words to describe what we are feeling,” he wrote on Instagram.
“This suffering will only end when we have him back home. I beg you to resolve this immediately, respecting your integrity and ending this painful wait as soon as possible.
“In the name of love and compassion, we ask that you reconsider your actions and allow us to get him back.”
In the message, Diaz also thanked the Colombian and the international community for their support: “I thank Colombians and the international community for the support received; thank you for so many demonstrations of affection and solidarity in this difficult time that many families in my country find themselves living.”
Diaz’s parents were taken hostage on October 28 by leftwing guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in their hometown of Barrancas.
TheLiverpool forward’s mother has been found but his father remains missing.
On Thursday, the government of Colombia said that the kidnapping had been carried out by the ELN.
The rebels subsequently issued a statement announcing that Díaz’s father would be released in the next few days.
People in the Colombian town of Barrancas recently had a peaceful march holding candles. They were asking for the father of Liverpool footballer Luis Díaz to be set free.
Luis Manuel Díaz and his wife were forcefully taken by someone with a gun on Saturday.
The kidnappers left the player’s mother in a car when the police came closer, but they took away his father by force.
A specific kind of police team is using trained dogs to look for clues in the area.
Many people in Barrancas marched together, wearing white T-shirts with a picture of Luis Manuel Díaz, and shouted “freedom”. “I am experiencing a strong feeling of pain within my inner self,” said Alis Amaya, a local resident, in an interview with Caracol news.
“It’s not fair that someone from our town, who is the child of a local family, should have to experience this pain and sadness,” she said.
Luis Manuel Díaz, or Mane, is a famous person in Barrancas who teaches young football players.
Videos from security cameras shown on the news seem to suggest that men on motorcycles were following the couple’s car right before they were captured at a gas station in Barrancas on Saturday.
The second-in-command of the Colombian police, General Nicolás Zapata, told reporters that “when something like this happens, it is not sudden, it is planned beforehand. ”
The Colombian government is trying harder to find Luis Manuel Díaz.
Barrancas is a town in the northern part of Colombia, in a province called La Guajira. This area has a lot of problems because there are many groups of guerrilla fighters and violent gangs operating here.
The police and soldiers are looking for something in the Perijá mountains. The mountains are in a dense forest that goes across the border of Colombia and Venezuela.
Police Chief William Salamanca said on Tuesday that they brought two sniffer dogs with expertise in searching for people in jungle areas to help with the search.
Special police teams are using helicopters and planes that have cameras which can detect heat to fly over the forest.
They have also passed out papers with a picture of Luis Manuel Díaz and a promise to give a reward of 200m pesos ($50,000; £40,000) if someone gives information about where Luis Manuel Díaz is.
On Monday, the police announced that they found some people connected to the kidnapping, but they didn’t reveal their identities.
However, they mentioned that it seems like a criminal gang took him instead of a guerrilla group.
There are many groups of bad people who do illegal things like bringing illegal things across the border, forcing people to give them money, and selling people to other places illegally. These groups are on both sides of the easily crossed border.
The army in Colombia said sorry for mistakenly killing many innocent people and lying by saying they were left-wing fighters. They did this to make it seem like they were doing better in the war that happened in the country.
A study discovered that the military wrongly killed 6,402 innocent people between 2002 and 2008 and pretended they were rebels. This was known as “false positives”.
At a meeting with mothers of the victims, the defense minister called the killings “disgraceful”.
“They weren’t rebels,” he said.
The leader of the Colombian army, Luis Ospina, said that some soldiers did very bad things that should never have happened.
The people who were hurt were mostly young men who lived in poor areas near the capital city, Bogotá.
They were tempted with offers of jobs to go to the countryside of Colombia, but soldiers killed them. Then, they put on clothes like guerrilla soldiers or held weapons in their hands.
The army wanted to make it seem like they were winning against the Farc guerrilla group.
Soldiers have said that their bosses forced them to increase the number of people they killed. They were promised promotions or extra time off as a reward.
For a long time, the family members of the victims tried hard to make sure that everyone knows the true story of what happened to their loved ones.
On Tuesday, Colombia’s Minister of Defence, Iván Velásquez, said sorry to them in a gathering held in Bogotá’s main square.
“We are apologizing to the victims, to the Colombian society, and to the international community,” Mr.
Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president of Colombia and a former member of the M-19 rebel group, arrived late but also apologized for what he described as a “genocide”.
The family members of 19 young men who were killed near the Venezuelan border and mistaken as rebels were at the event.
Each person went up on the stage and said the name of someone they loved who had been killed.
Some people were sad that it took over 15 years for the apology to be given.
Some people said it should have come from the previous president Álvaro Uribe, who was in charge when most of the “false positives” happened, and his former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos.
Florinda Hernández, whose son Elkin was killed in 2008, said that Juan Manuel Santos should have been there in person to apologize and ask for our forgiveness.
Lucero Carmona said that her family and she are not forgiving today, while Jackelin Castillo, who leads the group representing the mothers of the victims known as the “false positives,” said that their fight is not over. They will keep looking for the true culprits, the ones who ordered these crimes.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) is a special court system created as part of a peace agreement between the Colombian government and Farc rebels. It is currently investigating the “false positives” issue.
Over 700 security forces members have provided information, and in August, General Mario Montoya, the former leader of the Colombian army, was accused of orchestrating 130 “false positives”.
Bloomberg Economics predicts that cocaine is on track to surpass oil as Colombia’s primary export.
The Colombian government has adopted a more lenient drug policy, leading to an expansion in drug production. In 2022, cocaine exports were estimated to be worth $18.2 billion.
During the first half of this year, oil exports saw a 30% decline. Bloomberg economist Felipe Hernandez anticipates that by the end of 2023, cocaine could become Colombia’s top export.
The production of cocaine in South American countries like Peru and Bolivia has also seen a significant increase, especially during the economic crisis triggered by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
According to the United Nations drug agency UNODC, Colombia’s estimated potential coca production surged by 24% to 1,738 metric tons between 2021 and 2022. Coca serves as the primary ingredient for cocaine.
The amount of land used to grow coca bushes increased by 13%. The areas close to Colombia’s borders had the largest increase.
Around 66% of the coca crops are located in the provinces of Nariño and Putumayo, which are next to Ecuador, and in Norte de Santander, which is close to the Venezuelan border.
The amount of coca plants grown in Putumayo has increased by 77%. Putumayo is located near Peru and Ecuador.
Candice Welsch, who works for the UN, said it’s concerning that more coca plants are being grown in the country every year. Growing Coca plants in Colombia. Please explain the text I am about to provide using simpler language. This refers to the amount of land in Colombia that is used to grow coca plants, measured in hectares. Colombia’s Justice Minister, Néstor Osuna, stated that his country was successfully reducing the number of new cases and that the rate of increase was much lower than last year.
But, Leonardo Correa from the UNODC said that the amount of coca being grown has increased a lot in 2022.
The plants that were small last year are now fully grown and producing a lot of crops. Put simply, the amount of land being added each year is decreasing. “But he said that the production of cocaine is increasing at a faster rate. ”
The amount of land in Colombia being used to grow coca plants and the amount of cocaine that could be produced from it are currently the highest they have been since the UN started keeping track in 2001.
Colombia grows the most coca plants, which are used to make cocaine. They produce 60% of all the cocaine in the world. Peru and Bolivia also grow a lot of coca plants.
President Gustavo Petro asked his colleagues, who are leaders of other regions, to change their approach in dealing with drug use. He suggested that they should focus on treating drug use as a health problem rather than using military tactics.
He said at a conference on drugs in Cali that it is time to build hope and not continue the violent and fierce wars. He also said that drugs should be seen as a health issue, not a military problem for society. His Mexican partner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the most important thing is to fight against poverty and inequality, and to provide jobs and fair pay.
He said farmers should be persuaded to stop growing marijuana, poppies, and coca and start growing beans, corn, cocoa, and fruit trees instead.
Mexico is where some really strong drug gangs are based. They control the paths that drugs take from South America to the United States and Europe.
It also makes a lot of drugs like heroin, cannabis, methamphetamine, and synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
In a private ceremony held on Friday night in the nation’s capital, the body of the assassinated Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was laid to rest.
According to his campaign staff, the 59-year-old was buried in the Monteolivo cemetery in Quito’s north.
They claimed that the funeral took place in complete secrecy, with police officers and his nearest family accompanying the casket.
Villavicencio, an anti-corruption activist and congressman who spoke out against the carnage brought on by drug trafficking in the nation, was shot and killed on Wednesday during a campaign rally in Quito.
Villavicencio was assassinated just 10 days before the first round of the presidential election was scheduled to take place. Villavicencio belonged to the Movimiento Construye political party.
Six suspects, all of whom are gang members and citizens of Colombia, were reportedly detained by authorities on Thursday in connection with his murder. Although it is yet unknown what country the suspected shooter was from, he passed away earlier while in police custody.
The Andean country, which was until a few years ago a relatively calm country, is now afflicted by a worsening security crisis caused by drug trafficking and a turf war between competing criminal organisations.
As criminal organisations compete to control and distribute narcotics, particularly cocaine, the Pacific coast of Ecuador has seen the most violence.
The assassination sparked a global outcry of disapproval, notably from the UN Human Rights chief, the United States, and the European Union.
During the course of the inquiry, investigators confiscated two motorcycles, a stolen car that was thought to have been utilised by the suspects, a rifle, a machine gun, four handguns, three grenades, two rifle magazines, and four boxes of ammunition.
President Guillermo Lasso also requested assistance from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in response to the incident, and he tweeted earlier that a mission would soon be in the nation.
Morocco secured a spot in the World Cup last 16, joining Colombia, following a 1-0 victory in Perth. Anissa Lahmari’s late first-half goal proved decisive in sealing Morocco’s progression.
During the initial period, Morocco dominated proceedings, and their persistence paid off when Lahmari tapped in after Catalina Perez saved Ghizlane Chebbak’s initial penalty kick.
In the second half, Colombia mounted attempts to level the score on several occasions. However, goalkeeper Khadija Er-Rmichi emerged as the standout performer, safeguarding Morocco’s lead. This achievement saw tournament debutants Morocco advance to the knockout stages, at the expense of two-time winners Germany.
Morocco’s pathway to advancement necessitated a victory while hoping Germany would not triumph over South Korea, which indeed transpired as the latter match ended in a 1-1 draw, ultimately favoring Morocco’s progression.
Morocco nearly took the lead within the first moments of the game when Ibtissam Jraidi unleashed a shot from a narrow angle, but Perez deflected it for a corner.
In the closing moments of the first half, Morocco was awarded a penalty after Jraidi was fouled by Daniela Arias in the box. Chebbak took the penalty kick, aiming for the bottom corner, but Perez thwarted it. Following a misdirected attempt at goal from the rebound, Lahmari capitalized on the loose ball to find the net.
Around the 60-minute mark, Colombia presented their first significant chance. Daniela Montoya delivered a close-range shot at Er-Rmichi, with Lorena Bedoya’s subsequent effort slightly missing the target.
Building pressure, the South American side came close to equalizing once more. Mayra Ramirez’s powerful shot was deflected wide by Er-Rmichi.
Continuing their offensive, Colombia was close to scoring again, with Linda Caicedo receiving an opportunity. However, her shot was tipped over the bar, and Ramirez’s attempt was denied by the post.
In stoppage time, Morocco had an opportunity to extend their lead to 2-0, but Rosella Ayane’s shot from inside the area was directed straight at Perez.
The Colombian attorney general‘s office announced in a statement that the president of Colombia’s son has been detained as part of an investigation into money laundering and illegal enrichment.
The attorney general’s office opened an investigation into Nicolas Petro, a congressman from the Atlantico province, in early March over claims that he had accepted money from drug traffickers in exchange for including them in his father’s efforts to mediate peace talks with criminal organisations in the Caribbean, according to CNN at the time.
Petro previously refuted the allegations, calling them nothing more than political and personal attacks meant to discredit the achievements of his career, he said in a statement on March 2.
President of Colombia Gustavo Petro expressed his “hurt” at hearing of his son’s detention but promised that the legal process will be followed in the prosecution of the case.
“So much self-destruction and having one of my children go to prison hurts me deeply as a human and as a father. The prosecution has my full assurance that it may proceed legally, as President of the Republic, Petro said on Saturday in his official Twitter account.
Petro continued by wishing his son “luck and strength” and reiterating his resolve to remain neutral and avoid interfering with the attorney general’s investigation.
At the time, the president welcomed the inquiry and asked the attorney general to look into the claims made against his son.
Daysuris del Carmen Vásquez Castro, Nicolas Petro’s ex-wife, also has a warrant out for her arrest “for the crimes of money laundering and violation of personal data for events that occurred from 2022 to date,” according to a statement released by the attorney general’s office on Saturday.
“Those who have been apprehended will be given to a Municipal Criminal Judge with the Function of Guarantee Control, who will be asked to certify the legitimacy of the search, capture, and seizure procedures of significant pieces of evidence. Charges will be filed in the same manner for the aforementioned crimes, and a measure limiting freedom will be requested, according to the statement.
Colombia made a strong start to their Women’s World Cup campaign with a 2-0 victory over South Korea in Sydney.
Catalina Usme opened the scoring from the penalty spot, and 18-year-old Linda Caicedo added another goal in the 39th minute.
The match was also notable for the introduction of South Korea substitute Casey Phair, who became the youngest-ever player at a Women’s World Cup.
Aged just 16 years and 26 days, Phair broke the previous record held by Nigeria’s Ifeanyi Chiejine, who played at the World Cup in 1999 at the age of 16 years and 34 days.
Although born in South Korea, Phair moved to the United States when she was only a month old.
Despite her young age, South Korea’s coach Colin Bell had expressed confidence in Phair, stating that she would be a valuable member of the squad. Phair came on as a substitute for Choe Yuri as South Korea pushed for a comeback in the game.
“We’re taking care of her. She’s taken very well to the team. She’s selected because I think she can help the team now, like every other player. She is going not as a passenger but as a valuable member of the squad.”
Colombia took the lead against South Korea after Shim Seo-yeon was penalized for a handball in the area, and Catalina Usme successfully converted the penalty kick.
Shortly after, Linda Caicedo extended Colombia’s lead by showcasing her skills, starting from midfield, cutting in from the left, and delivering a well-curled shot past goalkeeper Yoon Young-geul.
With this victory, Colombia now shares the top spot in Group H with Germany, who secured an impressive 6-0 win against Morocco in their opening match. Both teams have accumulated three points in the group standings.
All teams participating in the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand have completed their opening matches. England is scheduled to face Denmark in their second Group D match on Friday. Sarina Wiegman’s team began their tournament with a 1-0 victory over Haiti.
Authorities in Colombia report that the four young children who were discovered last month after spending 40 days in the Amazon rainforest after an aeroplane crash have been released from the hospital and are doing well.
The four youngsters, who range in age from one to thirteen, have been receiving care at Colombia’s Military Hospital in Bogota since they were discovered on June 9.
They are now residing at a shelter home, according to Astrid Garces, director of the Colombian Children Welfare Agency ICBF, who spoke at a press conference on Friday. They were discharged from the medical facility on Friday.
“Considering everything they went through, they are actually well,” Garces said.
“Their physical health is perfect, and in the hospital, they started receiving care from a team of psychologists and anthropologists,” he added.
Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were stranded in the Amazon jungle on May 1 following a deadly plane crash that killed their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia alongside other passengers and the pilot on the aircraft.
Traces pointing to their survival sparked a massive military-led search involving more than hundred Colombian special forces troops and 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.
For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle, until they were found last month, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro calling them “children of the jungle”.
The children ate three kilograms (six pounds) of farina, a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon region, to stay alive, according to a Colombian military special forces official.
On Friday, the ICBF said it is expected to make a case in front of a family court to determine who will get legal custody over the four children, through a process known as “reinstatement of right.”
Their grandparents previously made an appeal to the children to be returned to them.
Both the father of the two youngest children, Manuel Ranoque, and the maternal grandparents have requested legal custody over them, and a family court will have to rule over their fate.
The ICBF did not comment further on the legal matter saying it is a private matter
“We had only been in the air for a little over a minute when the engine started wheezing. “We could see the propeller slowing down and the plane losing altitude,” recalls Diego Londoo, 30, of the isolated Colombian Amazon town of Mit, who was travelling to San Jose del Guaviare from his home three months prior when the plane abruptly lost power.
“It was all very fast, in a matter of minutes we were back on the ground, and nothing happened,” he says, brushing off the close encounter as a common event for any traveller in the region.
While this year’s mishap amounted to nothing serious – crew and passengers were able to resume their flight after a checkup at the engine – Londoño says he was involved in a more serious accident in 2019, when the cargo plane he was travelling in emergency-landed shortly after taking off from San Jose del Guaviare and causing him minor injuries as the cargo fell on top of him.
“It happens all the time here,” he says.
As Colombia waits for a sign of life from the four indigenous children who vanished into the jungle following a plane crash on May 1, accusations are emerging that dangerous flying incidents are all too common in the remote Amazon – an area where air travel is often the only connection between population centers.
The three adults onboard, including the pilot and the children’s mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, died in the crash. But only traces of the children have been found in the surrounding forests: a baby bottle, a makeshift shelter, a dirty diaper and even what appeared to be small footprints.
These discoveries have fueled hopes that 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy survived. However, a massive search by hundreds of soldiers and indigenous scouts has so far been fruitless, more than four weeks since the crash.
Indigenous advocates have said the tragedy is a result of governmental negligence. Following news of the crash, the Organization of Indigenous People in the Colombian Amazon issued a statement accusing Bogota of failing to enforce safety checks and protocols for planes in the region. The organization’s president Julio Cesar Lopez told CNN he hoped for a congressional investigation that would prevent future tragedies.
The skies over the Amazon have seen many accidents. Of 641 accidents registered by Colombia’s civil aviation authority since 1996, 56, or 8.74% of the total, took place in the Amazon region, even though less than 2% of the Colombian population lives there.
Londoño’s escape earlier this year, barely a hiccup in the rollercoaster of Amazonian aviation, is not counted in the statistics.
Pilots working in the area must contend with aging planes and a wild terrain, experts say.
“This is a factory of very good pilots: if you fly here, you must be pretty good,” says Jose Miguel Calderon, a charter pilot in Mitú who regularly flies single engine Cessnas like the one that crashed with the four children.
Calderon dismisses the idea that his job is particularly high risk, but he concedes flying in the Colombian Amazon is not for the faint hearted. Mitú’s airport is the only paved runway in an area larger than Switzerland, and Calderon’s definition of a good place to land is any opening in the vegetation that is dry enough not to trap his engine’s wheels in the mud.
The planes themselves are often of the older sort. The 206 that crashed with the kids was over 40 years old, but some of the aircraft still used in the Amazon can be up to 80 years old, according to Calderon.
In a statement to CNN, the Colombia’s Civil Aviation authority said, “Colombian law does not establish a maximum age for aircrafts operating in the country as long as they comply with all maintenance protocols. Moreover, this type of older airplanes are often the most apt to operate in the limited infrastructure of the airfields in the Colombian Amazon. The institution is aware of these situations and promotes a safety program to mitigate risks related to flying in older aircrafts.”
But even when the pilot manages to lift the old plane off the dirt track used as runway, navigation can be challenging. “We don’t have cruise controls, or any sort of computer; sometimes all you see is just the blue of the sky and the green of the forest,” says Calderon.
Pilots do have long wave radios or GPS systems, the rest is left to the intuition and experience of local pilots, who often travel with no comms for a large stretch of their route – an issue that the military search teams currently combing the forest for the missing children have also experienced.
“About 50-60 miles south of San Jose del Guaviare we lose contact with the base,” says Major Juan Valencia, a Blackhawk helicopter pilot who’s flying as part of the search and rescue mission to locate the missing kids.
“The main risk for me is that you can’t emergency land,” Valencia told CNN. While in most of the world it’s always possible to find a clear, flat strip to land a damaged aircraft such as a highway or a rural field, the rainforest is often so thick that pilots performing emergency landings in the area must attempt a sort of controlled crash on the top of the tree cover.
The same plane that carried the four children had previously crashed two years prior, in 2021, due to an engine malfunction. It performed a controlled crash landing, causing considerable damage to the propeller, engine and one wing.
After being repaired, the plane crashed again on May 1 under similar circumstances, on a route with no good options for emergency landing.
“The route from Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare this plane was travelling, 150 miles of the route’s 220 miles are just forest…When an emergency happened, the pilot had nowhere to go,” Valencia says.
Unfortunately, despite the considerable risks of flying in the Amazon, air travel is often the only way to get around, as few roads cross the through the jungle and waterways are even more dangerous. Most settlements in the region are only accessible with a plane.
The small Amazonian community of Tapurucuara, for instance, is about 20 kilometers (15 miles) from Mitú. No roads connect the two settlements, so transit from one to the other requires either an 8-hour hike on forest paths that are often under water, or a seven-minute charter according to Londoño and Calderon.
Mitù itself is only reachable via air or on a three-week boat journey from Calamar, the small settlement at the end of the only highway that links the Amazon Forest with central Colombia.
“Historically, the Amazon was not part of the agenda for Colombian governments,” say Nelly Kuiru, an indigenous activist and documentary filmmaker from La Chorrera, another indigenous settlement in the thick of the forest.
La Chorrera saw an economic boom fueled by the rubber industry in the early 1900s, but the tide receded with the spread of synthetic rubber during World War War II. The local population live off hunting, fishing, and subsistence farming, and plans to boost the local economy with eco-tourism have been hampered by the lack of connectivity; La Chorrera can only be reached by a commercial plane once every 15 days.
Kuiru also experienced danger when travelling in the Amazon. “It’s chaotic, dangerous. Once I was taking a European friend to La Chorrera, and the plane we were travelling on had the door shut from the inside with a rope because the lock was damaged… my friend could not believe it!” she recalled to CNN.
In a statement to CNN, the Colombian civil aviation authorities recognized air travel in the Amazon is riskier than in other regions of the country, due to lack of maintenance and the age of the fleet. The institution said it’s prioritizing restructuring airports over rejuvenating the fleet.
This year the Colombian government budgeted the equivalent of over $200 million to boost airports across the Amazon region over the next 30 years, and to open eight new commercial flight routes Amazon region.
President Gustavo Petro, the first progressive president of Colombia and an outspoken environmentalist, has made protecting and developing the Amazon a priority of his government. New resources are being thrown to the region from both his government and international partners; earlier this month, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the United Kingdom had agreed to contribute 13 million pounds ($16 million) to combat deforestation in the Colombian Amazon.
But Kuiru believes increased funding also carries its own risk, if not properly managed. She would like more resources made available for grass-roots projects presented by the indigenous communities, rather than grandiose environmental funds where local people who live in the Amazon have little control.
For now however, Kuiru’s focus is firmly set onto the four missing kids and the three adults who perished in the crash. One of them, Herman Mendoza, was a personal acquaintance of hers, which only spurs even more determination to demand change for transport in the region.
“This tragedy needs to send a message,” she said, “We can’t let his death grow unpunished.”
Environmental activist Maria Marquez, who survived a 2019 assassination attempt, claims explosives were discovered close to her house.
The assassination attempt near Francia Marquez’s home was thwarted, according to the vice president of Colombia, who was elected on a historic ballot in August.
The nation’s first Afro-Colombian vice president, Marquez, announced on Twitter on Tuesday that her security had “deactivated and destroyed a high-capacity explosive device” in the road leading to her family’s home in the village of Yolombo in the country’s southwest.
Marquez said the device contained more than seven kilograms (15.4 lbs) of explosive devices and involved “a plastic bag containing a high-powered explosive substance made of ammonium nitrate, powdered aluminum, and… nails.”
She added that her security agents discovered the explosive after reports of suspicious behavior by “outside elements” in the area.
No further details were immediately available.
Integrantes de mi equipo de seguridad hallaron un artefacto con más de 7 kilos de material explosivo en la vía que conduce a mi residencia familiar en la vereda de Yolombó, en Suarez, Cauca. El mismo fue destruido de manera controlada por personal anti explosivos de la SIJIN. pic.twitter.com/gUpYQVOfFD
Marquez, a vaunted environmental activist, became part of Colombia’s first-ever left-wing government following her victory with President Gustavo Petro, a former mayor of Bogota and one-time rebel with the now-defunct M-19 movement.
The election underlined a drastic change in presidential politics in Colombia, a country that has long approached leftist candidates warily for their perceived association with decades of armed conflict.
Petro has attempted to end the continuing violence in the country by negotiating with left-wing rebels and armed groups such as drug traffickers, drawing criticism from right-wing factions.
‘Another attempt’
In her tweet on Tuesday, Marquez noted the incident represented “another attempt on my life”.
In 2019, following a series of death threats, Marquez was attacked in her conflict-wracked home region of Cauca by men wielding guns and grenades during a meeting with community leaders. She was not harmed.
Activists are often targeted in Colombia, where armed groups and criminal gangs remain active despite a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC rebel group. At least 138 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, accounting for more than a third of the global total.
Shortly after the swearing-in in August, a vehicle in Petro’s presidential motorcade also came under gunfire in the northeast of the country. The government said no one was hurt in the attack, which occurred at an illegal checkpoint.
President Gustavo Petro stated on New Year’s Eve that the five largest armed groups operating in Colombiahad reached an agreement with the government to a six-month truce.
The Andean nation’s internal strife, which has lasted for over six decades and claimed at least 450,000 lives between 1985 and 2018, will be resolved, according to Petro, the nation’s first left-wing president.
President Gustavo Petro announces ceasefire with the five largest armed groups to support peace talks.
Colombia’s government has agreed to a six-month ceasefire with the five largest armed groups operating in the country, President Gustavo Petro announced on New Year’s Eve.
Petro, the country’s first left-wing president, has pledged to end the Andean nation’s internal conflict, which has run for almost six decades killing at least 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.
“This is a bold act,” Petro wrote on Twitter. “The bilateral ceasefire obliges the armed organisations and the state to respect it. There will be a national and international verification mechanism.”
Among the groups are the leftist armed group the National Liberation Army (ELN) as well as dissident groups run by former members of the now-demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Segunda Marquetalia and Estado Mayor Central.
The truce was the main objective of Petro’s “total peace” policy aimed at ending the country’s armed conflict, which has persisted despite the dissolution of FARC in 2017.
The armed groups still operating in Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, are locked in deadly disputes over drug trafficking revenues and other illegal businesses, according to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), an independent think-tank.
Despite the government’s efforts to negotiate with Colombia’s various armed groups, which include a combined total of more than 10,000 fighters, it has so far failed to contain the spiral of violence engulfing the country. Indepaz recorded nearly 100 massacres last year.
The ELN, the last recognised rebel group in the country, has been negotiating with the government since November.
The Segunda Marquetalia and Estado Mayor Central groups – splinter factions of FARC which broke from the 2016 peace pact – have held separate talks with the government.
AGC, the country’s largest drug gang, is made up of the remnants of extreme right-wing paramilitaries that demobilised in the early 2000s.
The government is offering the groups “benevolent treatment from the judicial point of view” for the armed actors “in exchange for a surrender of assets, a dismantling of these organisations and the possibility that they stop exercising these illicit economies”, Senator Ivan Cepeda recently told AFP news agency.
Some dissidents refused to lay down their arms alongside their FARC comrades six years ago, when the fearsome rebel group signed the deal with Bogota to end more than five decades of conflict.
Colombia has suffered more than 50 years of armed conflict between the state and various groups of left-wing fighters, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers. There are currently about 90 political and criminal groups operating in the country, according to Indepaz.
According to a statement from Colombia Migration, Venezuela and Colombia will fully restore their common border on January 1 to permit the transportation of goods and people via the Tienditas International Bridge.
The border crossing between the South American nations was previously restored in September in western Venezuela’s Tachira state after political ties under Gustavo Petro, the new president of Colombia, were reinforced.
Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Petro were each named ambassadors to Bogota and Caracas, respectively.
The restoration of the 2,200km (1,367 miles) common border between Colombia and Venezuela, as stated by Colombian authorities since September, would be progressive.
Government representatives from Venezuela were monitoring the Tienditas Bridge’s infrastructure last week.
“We completely reopen the border between our countries in order to guarantee the movement of cargo and passengers, and to promote trade and tourism in Colombia and Venezuela, not only by land but also by air and river,” said Colombia’s Minister of Transport Guillermo Reyes Gonzalez on Saturday.
Two bridges in Tachira and the western Zulia state allow people and freight to cross the border already. In November, flights between the two major cities—Caracas and Bogota—restarted.
According to official figures from Colombia, the value of the trade between the two nations is approximately $580 million.
The presidentof Colombia has reported that at least 27 people have died as a result of a landslide on a road in the western province of Risaralda.
Heavy rains caused a hillside to collapse, burying several vehicles under mud and rocks, including a bus carrying passengers.
Before he was buried and killed, one of the other passengers assisted his wife and two children in leaving the bus.
According to President Gustavo Petro, among those killed are at least three children.
On the road leading to the northern province of Chocó, a landslide occurred early on Sunday morning local time.
Witnesses said an intercity bus, a jeep, and a motorbike had stopped on the road because of a car accident further ahead when part of the hillside collapsed on top of them.
The bus is thought to have had two drivers and 25 passengers on board when it set off, but more passengers could have boarded along the way.
IMAGE SOURCE,COLOMBIAN DISASTER MANAGEMENT AGENCY Image caption, Rescuers are proceeding carefully to avoid the bus tumbling down the hillside
One of those who died inside the bus was identified as Guillermo Ibargüen. His son Andrés told Caracol News that “Dad helped me get out of the bus through a little hole”.
“I had to throw myself down the ravine. When I jumped, the mud had covered everything,” he said.
Ibargüen also helped his wife and his daughter escape the bus in time.
At least nine people have survived the landslide, including one girl who rescuers saw clinging to the body of her dead mother.
President says peace talks have led to an agreement to allow the Indigenous Embera community to return to its lands.
Colombia has reached an agreement in peace talks with the ELN rebel group to allow the Indigenous Embera community to return to its lands in the west of the country, President Gustavo Petro said.
The pact is the first significant success achieved at peace negotiations taking place between the government and the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), the country’s largest remaining rebel group.
The talks, aimed at ending the country’s decades-long conflict, resumed last month in Venezuela after being suspended in 2019.
“The first point of agreement that we reached with the ELN – in barely a week of these dialogues – is the return of the Indigenous Embera people … to their reservations,” Petro said on Saturday in a public appearance in Dabeiba, a town in northwestern Colombia.
Petro did not say when the Embera would return to their lands in the departments of Choco and Risaralda in western Colombia. They had fled violence between drug gangs, outlawed right-wing armed groups and the ELN.
Many of the displaced Embera now live in Colombia’s capital and hold highly visible protests in parks, clashing frequently with police.
As of Saturday, ELN delegates to the talks had not made any statements directly related to the humanitarian agreement on the Embera.
Embera Indigenous people clash with riot police while fighting for the right to the land they say belongs to them, in Bogota, Colombia [File: Harry Furia Grafica/Reuters]
‘Total peace’
The push for peace negotiations came from Colombia’s new first-ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro, who was a former member of the M-19 rebel movement.
After taking office in August, the president engaged the ELN as part of his “total peace” policy and the negotiations resumed even though no ceasefire between the two parties has been reached yet.
Nevertheless, the ELN had pledged to allow “humanitarian relief processes” as part of a peace talks framework its leaders signed with the government of then-President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.
That year, Santos signed a historic peace deal with Colombia’s largest and oldest rebel group, the FARC. The FARC and the ELN operated in different parts of the country.
Previous attempts at negotiations with the ELN, which accounts for approximately 2,500 combatants according to peace-building civic group Indepaz, have not advanced partly because of dissent within its ranks.
ELN leaders say the group is united, but it is unclear how much sway negotiators hold over active units. The group is primarily active in the Pacific region and along the 2,200km (1,370-mile) border with Venezuela.
Activists hope the treaty is the first step towards more protection in one of the most dangerous nations for environmentalists.
Sikuani Indigenous leader Benilde Carreno likens the destruction of her community’s native plants to “losing an arm or a leg”.
Her people, located in the Colombian Orinoquia, an eastern region on the border with Venezuela, have suffered not only from the rigours of 50 years of civil war and its aftermath, but also environmental damage from poorly planned reforestation projects and the opening of drug trafficking routes by illegal armed groups.
Carreno is now displaced from her reservation, living in exile in the capital, Bogota, due to threats against her life resulting from her activism. But she hopes Colombia’s ratification of the Escazu Agreement on the environment will usher in a new chapter.
The accord, she tells Al Jazeera, can be “a fundamental tool that will protect the leaders and caretakers of Mother Earth, of our environment, water and life”. It will also allow her to qualify for state protection so that she can return to her community.
“The protections set out in the Escazu Agreement are fundamental for us,” she says. “We fought for this agreement and we are going to push it forward because I believe that if it is not enforced, ongoing killings of the defenders of Mother Earth will continue.”
The agreement
The Escazu Agreement, adopted in Costa Rica in March 2018, is a legally binding international treaty that aims to promote transparency in environmental decision-making. The first of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean, it also includes protections for environmentalists like Carreno — a welcome development in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for land defenders.
The agreement enshrined the rights of citizens to get information on industrial projects; ordered the creation of mechanisms for environmental justice and law enforcement, and required signatories to monitor socio-environmental conflicts and provide mitigation and resolution strategies for them.
“This law gives power to the citizens, in the function of the defence of nature, the defence of the planet, the defence of life,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a signing ceremony on November 5.
Colombia’s Congress ratified the Escazu Agreement on October 11 – making it the 14th country in the region to do so – and Petro’s signature, pending a review by the Supreme Court, enshrines the treaty into Colombian law. His predecessor Ivan Duque signed the accord in 2019, but Duque’s administration never sought Congressional approval for formal ratification.
Claudia Vasquez, director of The Nature Conservancy, an NGO that advocates for the protection of biodiversity in Latin America, said the accord will be key to environmental protections in the country.
“The participation of our Indigenous peoples and local communities and the guarantee of their territorial rights must be an indispensable pillar of conservation efforts,” she told Al Jazeera. “The Escazu Agreement strengthens guarantees of the rights of these communities so that both participation and land rights are more effectively recognised.”
‘A step towards peace’
Aida Quilcue, a senator with the left-wing MAIS party, which is part of Petro’s “Historic Pact” coalition, and a Nasa Indigenous leader from the region of Cauca, hailed the agreement’s ratification. She said it is a crucial step towards protecting activists, as well as advancing real peacebuilding in regions long-neglected by the federal government.
For years, Colombia was ranked as the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists. Global Witness, an environmental watchdog, said in a September report that 322 environmental activists were murdered in Colombia between 2011 and 2021.
And Cauca, where Quilcue is from, has emerged as one of the epicentres of such attacks, recording one of the highest rates of violence since a 2016 peace deal was signed by Bogota and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels. On October 29, Quilcue was the victim of an attack herself when unidentified gunmen fired on the government car she was travelling in.
“I strongly welcome the ratification,” she told Al Jazeera. “If we do not protect Mother Earth, humanity will go extinct. We Indigenous people have been on the front lines of this struggle. But perhaps just as importantly, this is a step towards peace. Without real peace [in Colombia], we will not be able to achieve lasting solutions for saving the environment.”
Petro has promised to reign in surging violence in the country through dialogue with armed groups, provide protection for social leaders, and make long-promised investments in areas racked by conflict as part of what he dubbed a plan for “total peace”.
He also has promised to target deforestation, which rose considerably under the previous administration, and to find economic alternatives to oil and mineral extraction — both industries that will be subject to more oversight under Escazu.
Mayerly Lopez, an environmental leader and defender of the Santurban Paramo, an alpine wetland region in Santander, in eastern Colombia, described the new accord as a sharp departure from past policy.
“Under previous governments, the approval process [for extractive projects] was opaque and dominated by powerful industrial interests, and occurred with little public oversight,” she said. “The process for creating environmental protections has been top-down and haphazard, rather than democratic, and heavily favoured large companies.”
Challenges ahead
Both Lopez and Carreno believe the Escazu Agreement presents an opportunity for developmental projects to be carried out hand-in-hand with residents, rather than imposed upon communities, a dynamic that in the past has led to violent land conflicts, as well as the displacement of local residents and killings of activists.
Although hailed as a symbolic victory for Petro’s administration, implementation and enforcement of the new law may present significant challenges — especially in regions like Cauca and Choco where there is little state presence, illegal armed groups are fighting for territorial control, and land defenders continue to be killed.
It also is not yet clear how Colombia intends to enforce the agreement, including which state agencies will lead investigations or bring charges in the case of potential violations. While the process will be led by the Ministry of Environment, enforcement also seems to fall under the jurisdiction of other governmental departments, as well as the Colombian security forces.
Meanwhile, some business leaders and politicians have strongly criticised the accord. Maria Fernanda Cabal, a congresswoman with Centro Democratico, the right-wing party of former President Duque, has opposed ratification, claiming that the Escazu Agreement puts the country’s “national sovereignty as well as the business sector at risk”.
But for Lopez, the accord provides a sense of hope that she and other activists will face less persecution and violence.
“I have received death threats via social media as well as physical pamphlets,” she said. “I hope as part of the Escazu Agreement, the state creates mechanisms to provide protection for land defenders and to investigate these threats, which currently happen in an environment of total impunity.”
Colombia’s newly elected president, Gustavo Petro, made the reopening a centrepiece of his campaign. Seven years had passed since the Simon Bolivar international bridge was closed.
Colombia and Venezuela on Monday reopened their border after years of impasse.
The reopening was a key campaign promise of left-wing Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who assumed office last month. The two countries subsequently re-established diplomatic relations.
“This is a historic day for the country, for the region, and for the Americas in general,” Petro said.
On foot, Petro crossed the Simon Bolivar international bridge, dividing the Venezuelan town of San Antonio from Colombia’s Cucuta and Villa del Rosario. Having crossed the border, he met with a Venezuelan delegation including Transport Minister Ramon Velasquez and Industry Minister Hipolito Abreu.
Petro and the Venezuelan delegation accompanied the first cargo truck to cross the border after the reopening.
“I want the first people who benefit to be those who live on either side of the border, those who risked (illegal crossings),” Petro said in later comments.
“The result should be a qualitative jump in human rights all along the Colombian-Venezuelan border,” he said.
Petro said that a second road bridge near Cucuta would open within weeks.
The Simon Bolivar bridge had officially been closed to trade for nearly seven years. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered border crossings closed in 2015 during what he described as a crackdown on smuggling.
Cargo transport had previously only been allowed through one northern crossing.
At least four people have been killed and more than 300 were injured after a stand collapsed during a bullfight in central Colombia.
Footage showed the three-storey wooden stand filled with spectators falling at a stadium in El Espinal, Tolima department.
A bull continued to roam the ring as people fled the wreckage.
The traditional “corraleja” event involved members of the public entering the ring to engage the bulls.
The dead included two women, a man and a child, Tolima Governor Jose Ricardo Orozco said. The region’s health official said hospitals had treated 322 people of whom four were in intensive care.
Sunday’s event was part of celebrations of the popular San Pedro festival.
Outgoing President Ivan Duque said there would be an investigation, while President-elect Gustavo Petro urged local officials to ban such events.
“I ask mayors not to allow more events involving the death of people or animals,” he said.
It was not the first time such an accident had happened, he added.
On Saturday several people were injured during corralejas in El Espinal. Earlier this month one person died after being gored by a bull during a corraleja in the town of Repelon.
Mr Orozco said his regional authority would move to ban the corralejas, saying they were dangerous and cruel to animals.
Incoming leader Mr Petro banned bullfights in the main bullring of Colombia’s capital Bogotá during his stint as the city’s mayor.
Colombian student activist Lucas Villa was declared brain dead Monday night, nearly a week after he was shot eight times at a peaceful protest against President Ivan Duque’s government, CNN Espanol reported, citing a statement from San Jorge de Pereira University Hospital where he was being treated.
His family and the government also confirmed his death on social media Tuesday.
The 37-year-old was one of three students shot by unknown gunmen on motorcycles at a demonstration on the evening of May 5 in Pereira, central Colombia.
“Continue dancing in each cloud and make everyone there happy, like you did here,” his sister, Nicole Villa wrote in a post on Instagram.
The death caused consternation in Colombia, as Villa was a well-known figure in Pereira, and doctors at San Jorge Hospital had expressed hopes he might recover from his wounds.
Duque commented on the protester’s death on Twitter writing: “We stand with the Villa family with deep sadness after the news of Lucas’ death. I repeat what I [said to] Mauricio, his father, that this becomes the opportunity to come together and reject violence. To the responsible [I wish] all the power of the law.”
The government is offering a reward of 100 million Colombian pesos ($27,000) in exchange for any “information to capture those responsible,” Minister of Defense Diego Molano wrote on Twitter, before expressing “all our commitment to finding those guilty for this atrocious crime.”
What behind Colombia’s latest protests?
Colombians initially took to the streets on April 28 over proposed tax reforms put forward by Duque, who said the changes were “a necessity to keep the social programs going.”
The government has since withdrawn the reforms but the demonstrations have continued in response to security forces’ heavy-handed response to grievances.
Videos of anti-riot policemen using tear gas and batons against protesters have gone viral on social media, spreading beyond big cities and across the country.
Far from curbing the protests, alleged police brutality has become a focal point for the demonstrators, who are now calling for an independent, international inquiry into the deaths.
A total of 42 people, including one police officer, have been killed during nationwide protests in Colombia since April 28, according to the latest report from the country’s Ombudsman.
However, rights groups such as the Colombia-based NGO Temblores and US-based Human Rights Watch believe the death toll to be higher and say more than 45 people have died.
Molano also said on Twitter that 849 police officers have been injured, 647 people have been arrested, and 378 firearms and 72 explosive devices have been apprehended.
Former president Alvaro Uribe said Tuesday that Colombia’s Supreme Court has issued an arrest warrant against him for witness tampering. “Being deprived of my freedom is very sad for me, my wife, my family and for the Colombians who still think I did something good for the homeland,” Uribe wrote on Twitter.
The court itself has not published its decision but local media say Uribe, now a senator, is to be held under house arrest.
The 68-year-old, who is the political mentor of current leader Ivan Duque and the head of the ruling Democratic Center party, was president from 2002-10 and remains one of Colombia’s most influential politicians.
On Tuesday the court held a hearing into his case, in which Uribe is accused of using his position as a senator to tamper with a witness.
He faces bribery and procedural fraud charges and could serve up to eight years in prison if convicted.
The right-wing politician was questioned by judges last October — the first time a former president had appeared before Colombia’s highest court.
In 2012, Uribe filed a complaint against leftist senator Ivan Cepeda, who Uribe says hatched a plot to falsely link him to paramilitary groups.
But in 2018, the court instead opened a witness tampering investigation against Uribe.
His efforts as president to stand up to Marxist guerrillas made Uribe a hero to some but saw him heavily criticized by others.
At least 212 environmental campaigners worldwide were murdered in 2019, making last year the deadliest on record for frontline activists battling  the destruction of Nature, watchdog group Global Witness reported Wednesday.
Colombia and the Philippines combined accounted for just over half of the confirmed deaths — 64 and 43, respectively — followed by Brazil, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
The real number is likely higher due to unreported or misrepresented cases, especially in Africa, the NGO said in its annual review.
About 40 percent of victims were indigenous people, and over two-thirds died in Latin America. One in ten were women.
For decades, native communities in the forests of Central and South America, Asia and Africa have seen ancestral lands degraded and destroyed, sometimes with the blessing of corrupt local or national governments.
Of the 141 murders last year that could be linked a specific economic sectors, more than a third involved campaigners protesting mining operations, some legal most not.
Thirty-four killings related to agribusiness were overwhelmingly in Asia, especially the Philippines.
Two Indonesian activists were stabbed to death in October near a palm oil plantation in northern Sumatra.
In the Philippines, police and counter-insurgency operations led to the massacre of 14 sugar plantation farmers on Negros island in March, only months after nine others had been killed in similar circumstances.
‘Draconian laws’
“Agribusiness and oil, gas and mining have consistently been the biggest drivers of attacks against land and environmental defenders,” said Global Witness campaigner Rachel Cox.
“They are also the industries pushing us further into runaway climate change through deforestation and increased carbon emissions.”
Burning forests not only robs the planet of greenhouse gas absorbing vegetation, it also releases stored CO2 into the atmosphere.
Logging operations were directly linked to 24 deaths, with another 14 related to illegal crop substitution, 11 to land reform, and six to water management or dam construction.
In the Philippines, a Manobo tribal chieftain was killed during a military  bombardment while protesting rogue mining operations near Kitaotao, in northern Mindanao.
“The Philippines’ remaining virgin forests — like those protected by the Manobo — are being felled for mineral extraction and profit,” the report noted.
“This is ‘business as usual’ for President Rodrigo Duterte and his government who are forging ahead with policies that prioritise fossil fuels and have passed draconian laws that can be used to silence those trying to stand in their way.”
The number of killings in Colombia more than doubled last year, while in Honduras they rose from four to 14.
The tropics and developing countries are not the only hotspots for violent attacks against those protecting natural resources.
Threat of sexual violence
In Romania, an EU member state, a forest ranger working in one of Europe’s largest primeval forests was shot dead for trying to protect trees against organised criminal gangs harvesting them for profit.
A month earlier, one of her colleagues was murdered with an axe to the back of the head.
“At a time when we most need people to protect the planet against destructive, carbon-intensive industries, we are seeing the highest number of killings of land and environmental defenders” since Global Witness started tracking the issue in 2012, the report concluded.
Outright murders occur against a generalised backdrop of intimidation and harassment.
“Women defenders face specific threats,” such as personal smear campaigns, the report said.
“Sexual violence is used as a tactic to silence women defenders, much of it underreported.”
Efforts by local and indigenous communities to assert land rights also provoke violent ripostes.
“In many countries, peoples’ rights to their land and natural resources are either unprotected, undocumented or not recognised,” Global Witness said.
Seven Colombian soldiers were arrested on Thursday after confessing to charges of sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl from the Embera Katio indigenous group, in the northwestern department of Risaralda, the country’s Attorney General said.
Their Army unit had been deployed there to enforce lockdown measures in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
The soldiers confessed to “aggravated abusive sexual intercourse with a minor younger than 14-years old,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office published Thursday and are currently awaiting a civilian trial.
The leader of the Embera Katio community, Juan de Dios Queragama said in a statement that the alleged incident occurred last Sunday and that human rights workers had informed him of it.
“It appears that some friends from (the rural settlement of) Santa Cecilia found her, because her mother was looking for her as she had been lost.
“When she went to look for her, she found the child at her school. When they picked her up, the child couldn’t walk. They took her directly to the hospital and from the hospital they took her to forensic services,” Queragama told national news outlet RCN Wednesday. On Friday, she was still in the hospital.
The victim, her family and the indigenous group are currently receiving legal and psychological assistance by the Organization of Indigenous Nations of Colombia (ONIC), spokesman Silsa Arias told CNN on Thursday.
“Her health condition is very serious,” Luis Fernando Arias, Senior Adviser for ONIC told CNN Thursday, adding that the 12-year-old “was kidnapped and raped for a period of 17 hours.”
The case coincides with a turning point in the Colombian government’s approach to sexual violence: On June 18, Congress passed a reform that would expand possible penalties for sex offenders to life in jail.
Although the measure is yet to be signed into law, Colombian President Ivan Duque said that its full weight could be imposed if the seven soldiers are found guilty. “If we have to inaugurate the life in prison penalty with them, we’re going to do it with them. And we are going to use it so that these bandits and scoundrels get a lesson,” Duque said on Wednesday.
Similar pledges came from the Ministry of Defense, and the Attorney General who on Thursday said the soldiers had dishonored their uniforms and the dignity of Colombia.
Sexual violence is a pandemic of its own in Colombia and the surrounding region. According to the 2019 UN Human Development Index, one in three Colombian women say they have been victims of sexual violence. More than 40% of Ecuadorian women and 58% of Bolivian women say the same thing.
In Colombia the majority of such violence is directed at minors: According to figures collected by the Colombian Femicide Foundation, 8,532 women and girls reported that they had experienced sexual violence in the first five months of this year. More than 5,800 were under the age of 18.
Those figures are consistent with the numbers of cases collected so far this year by Colombia’s National Institute of Legal Medicine: Of 7,544 medical examinations performed across the country since January to determine whether sexual violence was committed, 6,479 were performed on minors.
And these are just the numbers of cases that end up being reported. Colombia has a history of under-reported sexual violence according to women’s rights organizations who warn that this year, the reality of what happens inside locked-down households could be far worse.
‘Broken trust’
But the trial could mark the beginning of a new era in Colombia: Despite controversy, the vote in Congress last week to toughen punishment of sexual abuse was widely seen as a success in the fight against sexual violence. Until now, the Colombian constitution has not included life in jail as a penalty for any crime. When the vote came, more than 30 congressional representatives left the hall to signal their opposition to the reform.
The initial reaction to the case at the highest levels of government may also indicate a shift. Over more than fifty years of fighting with guerrillas and drug traffickers, the Colombian Army has repeatedly been accused of silencing crimes committed by soldiers.
Many feared that the soldiers’ case in Risaralda would be swept under the rug without resolution, but authorities inside and outside the military world have instead publicly acknowledged the allegations.
While the seven soldiers are waiting for their day in court, the ONIC is demanding that they be tried under indigenous law, arguing that it’s their jurisdiction since the alleged crime was against an indigenous person, on indigenous land.
“This act breaks Colombia’s indigenous groups’ trust in all the armed forces of the country. The soldiers were supposed to be here to protect the people from the pandemic,” said Luis Fernando Arias.
The director of a prison in the Colombian city of Villavicencio says overcrowding is to blame for one of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.
More than 850 inmates and members of staff have been infected.
“How can I ensure there is isolation if there are people sleeping under the beds and in the bathrooms?” asked prison director Miguel Ãngel RodrÃguez.
He said that when the outbreak started, there were 1,835 inmates at the jail, more than double its capacity.
Mr RodrÃguez was answering questions about the outbreak at Villavicencio prison during a virtual session of the regional assembly in Meta province.
He alleged that the Colombian state had “abandoned” the jail. “There are working groups and security councils where a lot of ideas are thrown around and lots of papers are signed, but there are no results. Red tape is paralysing us, and inside the prison we’re doing what we can.”
Two weeks ago, police foiled an escape attempt by a group of inmates who had started building a tunnel.
The prison director said 1,750 inmates were currently being held at the jail and that the overcrowding made it impossible to slow the spread of the virus.
“The areas we use to isolate [inmates] are not ideal,” he said, adding that prison authorities were moving prisoners into one of the carpentry workshops to create more space.
To make matters worse, there is also a shortages of doctors at the prison.
Last week, Colombia’s director of prison services, Lissette Cervantes, said that doctors working at Villavicencio jail had quit because they had not been given the necessary protective equipment.
“It’s not because they just felt like it or even because they were afraid, they just can’t go unprotected into what is like a war [against the virus],” Ms Cervantes said.
Nationwide, Colombia has more than 11,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 479 people have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Colombia’s national airline, Avianca, has filed for bankruptcy protection in a US court.
The carrier is the second-largest in Latin America, but its passenger operations have been grounded since March because of coronavirus.
It said the pandemic had cut more than 80% of its income, and it was struggling with high fixed costs.
If it fails to come out of bankruptcy, Avianca will be the first major airline to go under amid the pandemic.
In a statement, the firm said it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a court in New York. The process postpones a US company’s obligations to its creditors, giving it time to reorganise its debts or sell parts of the business.
Chief executive Anko van der Werff said the move was needed to ensure the New York-listed airline emerge as a “better, more efficient airline that operates for many more years”.
More than 140 of its aircraft have been grounded since Colombian President Ivan Duque closed the country’s airspace in March. Most of its 20,000 employees have been put on unpaid leave.
Behind KLM, Avianca is the second-longest continually running airline in the world.
It previously filed for bankruptcy in the early 2,000s, and was rescued by a deal with Bolivian oil tycoon German Efromovich. The airline grew quickly under his stewardship, but its growing debt led to a successful boardroom coup against Mr Efromovich last year. It is now run by Kingsland Holdings.
The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a huge blow to the international aviation industry, as governments impose travel restrictions and confinement measures.
Global air travel has fallen by 90%, according to the International Air Transport Association. The body predicts Latin American airlines will lose $15bn (£12bn; €13.9bn) in revenues this year – the biggest drop in the industry’s history.
At least 23 people have died in one of Bogotá’s largest jails after what the authorities are calling a mass breakout attempt amid rising tensions over coronavirus.
Colombia’s Justice Minister Margarita Cabello said 83 inmates were injured during a riot at La Modelo prison.
Inmates at prisons across the country held protests on Sunday against overcrowding and poor health services during the coronavirus outbreak.
The justice ministry is investigating.
Ms Cabello said 32 prisoners and seven guards were in hospital. Two guards are in a critical condition.
She said the violence was a coordinated plan with disturbances reported across 13 of the country’s prisons.
Denying claims of unsanitary conditions amid fears of a coronavirus breakout, she said: “There is not any sanitary problem that would have caused this plan and these riots.
“There is not one infection nor any prisoner or custodial or administrative staffer who has coronavirus.”
She said prisoners had run amok and some would be charged with attempted murder, and damage to property.
A large number of relatives gathered outside the gates of La Modelo prison to await news of their loved ones. They said they had heard of shots being fired after the security forces arrived.
Videos posted to social media showed inmates setting fire to mattresses.
The country’s 132 prisons have an 81,000-inmate capacity but house more than 121,000 prisoners, according to figures from the justice ministry.
So far, there have been 231 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Colombia and two people have died.
The country is set to begin a nationwide quarantine from Tuesday which is expected to last 19 days. It will restrict residents’ movements with the exception of medical staff, security forces and pharmacy and supermarket staff.
People over the age of 70 have been told to stay indoors until the end of May.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court shut down a landmark abortion case on Monday that divided the South American country and offered what experts called an opportunity to “set a precedent for the region”.
For 14 years, Colombian law allowed for abortions under three circumstances: if the mother’s life was endangered, if the pregnancy was a product of rape or if the fetus is fatally deformed.
A case, brought forward by a hardline anti-abortion rights activist, sought to eliminate those exceptions, but instead offered the court an opening to permit abortions during the first months of pregnancy.
On Monday afternoon, the magistrates announced in a 6-3 decision that it would maintain the status quo, a move hailed both as a disappointment and a victory for women’s rights activists.
“The court is missing an opportunity to expand abortion access,” said Paula Avila-Guillen, director of Latin America Initiatives for the Women’s Equality Center. “However, it’s a verification that we’re not moving backward.”
The case divided the South American country. A February poll by Colombian magazine Semana suggested that nearly 70 percent of the country was opposed to the legalisation of abortion in the first four months of a pregnancy, but abortion rights and anti-abortion rights protests have mounted leading up to Monday’s decision.
As the court deliberated, protesters on both sides faced off on the street outside the court building. An invisible ideological wall seemed to run along the city’s main street, dividing the two groups who screamed at each other.
Protesters with green pro-choice bandanas screamed, “Yes, yes, yes for abortion”, while groups with blue anti-abortion rights bandanas screamed back, “Yes, yes, yes, for life.”
The controversial case was brought to the table by hardline anti-abortion rights lawyer Natalia Bernal in 2019. Bernal asked for a total ban on abortion after a 22-year-old woman in the western Catholic city of Popayan had an abortion at seven months after a psychological assessment noted that she was suffering from severe mental issues like depression as a result of the pregnancy.
“My theory is that if abortion rights are increased, there will be many more women who are raped because the rapist knows that the State will permit women to get rid of the consequences of the rape,” Bernal told local media Red+ in late 2019 without providing any evidence to back up her claim.
But instead, the legal challenge put on the table the possibility of legalisation.
The case came after a wave of feminist movements swept across the region. Of the 33 countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean, only Uruguay, Cuba and Guayana allow for abortion procedures without a woman needing to prove her pregnancy endangers her life or that she was raped. In Argentina, a similar conversation is playing out as congressional legislators are set to consider a bill that would legalise abortion.
Despite the shifts, much of the largely Catholic country remains strongly against abortion rights, including Colombian President Ivan Duque who called any move away from the three exceptions “very tough”.
“I’m pro-life. I believe life starts at conception,” he said in February.
Legal red tape
In 2006, Colombia’s Constitutional Court overturned an all-out ban on abortion and, on paper, Colombia’s laws appear more liberal than neighbouring countries. But the legal red tape associated with the laws make access to abortion in many cases virtually impossible, and women seeking abortions are often asked for proof of rape beyond police reports.
Other healthcare providers refuse to perform the abortion or create elongated approval processes for women who are often “running against time” to receive the care, said Cristina Rosero, a lawyer at the Bogota-based women’s advocacy group, Women’s Link.
We’re “seeing health professionals just … putting up illegal obstacles, and they’re not being held accountable for it,” Rosero told Al Jazeera. “That creates this impunity feeling that lets them not comply with the law because they don’t feel there is going to be any consequence.”
In 13 years, 300 legal complaints have been filed from women who say they were denied a legal abortion, yet only three of those cases ended in sanctions of healthcare providers, according to Women’s Link.
In rural zones of the country also often lack sufficient medical supplies or training to perform such procedures, so such care becomes inaccessible to large swaths of the population.
“This is about privilege,” said Avila-Guillen, who recalled that while growing up in a rural area, friends would have to travel more than 350km (217 miles) by bus to get medical attention in Bogota.
An estimated 400,400 abortions are performed each year in Colombia, according to US-based reproductive rights organisation Guttmacher Institute. In 2018, private abortion provider Profamilia said 16,878 legal abortions were performed legally.
Despite that being a massive jump in the number of legal procedures from 2008 – when Guttmacher documented 322 legal procedures performed in medical clinics – it means the vast majority of abortions performed in the country are still clandestine.
Almost 15 percent of maternal deaths across the world are a product of botched clandestine abortions, and women living in rural zones are more likely to experience medical complications than those in cities.
While the court decision did little to change the legal status quo in the South American country, Rosero said the case is still an important step for groups to open new challenges to abortion law in the predominately Catholic country because the court refused to acknowledge Bernal’s challenge.
It also, she said, launched a public conversation that is only expected to continue.
“It opens the doors for advances which haven’t happened in 14 years,” she said. “This is a huge step because it means that the public debate is going forward and the people are ready for a conversation.”
Colombian troops have killed nine dissidents formerly of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in an air raid, the first since the group’s former leaders rejected a 2016 peace agreement and announced a return to arms.
President Ivan Duque said on Friday he had authorised the military operation in rural areas of Colombia’s south.
Few details of the operation were released, but Duque said the dead included a rebel known by his alias, Gildardo Cucho. The fighter was part of a group that former FARC Commander Luciano Marin, known by his alias Ivan Marquez, was looking to recruit to his new rebel movement, Duque said.
“Thanks to strategic, meticulous, impeccable and rigorous work, Gildardo Cucho, a leader in this organisation, was killed,” Duque said in a televised statement from the city of Sincelejo.
“This criminal was dedicated to drug trafficking, kidnapping, the intimidation of social leaders and he was expected to be part of this threatening new group which yesterday presented itself to the country as a new rebel group – which it isn’t because it’s a narco-terrorist gang,” he said.
The operation was “a clear message” to the group to lay down their weapons, the Colombian leader added.
Minister of Defence Guillermo Botero, who said the operation had taken place in the San Vicente del Caguan region, wrote on Twitter: “The criminals are warned: they surrender or they will be defeated.”
Peace accord
The raid came a day after Marin announced he would resume fighting, accusing Duque’s government of betraying a 2016 peace agreement under which most of the FARC’s 7,000 fighters disarmed after half a century of conflict.
Marin, who was the FARC’s chief negotiator, read a long manifesto in a video surrounded by a group of 20 heavily-armed rebels from what he said was a clandestine camp in Colombia’s eastern jungles but which authorities contend was inside Venezuela – long a safe haven for the rebel group.
He added that his forces would coordinate with Colombia’s last active rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), “and those comrades who have not folded up their flags.”
The United States, a key ally of Duque’s conservative government, denounced Marin and his allies.
“We strongly repudiate recent calls by some individuals to abandon the FARC’s commitments under the 2016 peace accord,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
The peace accord has come under pressure on various fronts, including the murder of hundreds of former rebels and human rights activists, delays in funding for economic efforts by former combatants, and deep political polarisation.
More than 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced during Colombia’s decades-long conflict between the government, rebel groups, crime gangs and right-wing paramilitaries.
Dissidents from the FARC include some rebels who refused outright to demobilise under the peace deal and others who initially backed the process before returning to fight. Their forces are estimated to number more than 2,200.
Many are thought to be based in Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro has said former rebels commanders were welcome.
On Thursday, Duque said he would send a special army unit “with reinforced intelligence, investigation and mobility capabilities” to hunt down Marin and other holdouts.
“Colombians must be clear that we are not facing a new guerrilla, but facing the criminal threats of a gang of narco-terrorists who have the shelter and support of the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro,” Duque said, referring to the Venezuelan president.
He announced a three billion peso (about $882,000) reward for the arrest of those appearing in the video featuring Marin.
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