(France24) – President Juan Manuel Santos declared Colombia’s 50-year conflict with FARC guerrillas finally over on Tuesday, as the last truckloads of decommissioned weapons rolled away to be melted down. Santos himself shut a padlock on the last lot of decommissioned rifles before it was taken out of a remote demobilization camp to formally seal the […]
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(NRC) – Despite the 2016 peace agreement, Colombia is witnessing increased numbers of displacement due to ongoing intense clashes. “Colombia sailed on the hope of the peace negotiations for four years, but that boat has for many people living in conflict zones docked. We can’t ignore the problem any longer,” said Christian Visnes, Country Director for […]
(Colombia Reports) – Combat between Colombia’s security forces and an unidentified illegal armed group forced some 240 locals to flee their homes in the northeast of the country, according to the United Nations. The fighting has been taking place for days in the municipality of Hacari, Norte de Santander, from where the first reports of combat and […]
(IRIN) – It was a typically humid afternoon in Pie de Pepé when a gunshot pierced the calm of the tiny town in Colombia’s Baudó region near the Pacific coast. Edwin Jackson Mosquera fell to the ground on the dirt road he had been walking along to start his shift at the local police station. […]
(HRW) – Two armed groups competing for control over stretches of Colombia’s San Juan river are committing serious abuses against Afro-Colombian and indigenous Wounaan riverside communities, Human Rights Watch said today. The National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and the paramilitary successor group Gaitanist Self-defenses of Colombia (AGC) have been engaged in conflict with one another in the Chocó […]
(Colombia Reports) – Colombia’s largest, but demobilizing rebel group FARC has so far surrendered 57 child soldiers, more than double the “no more than 25” it said to have in its ranks ahead of the peace process. In a press release, the Red Cross said it had received another 16 children on Sunday at multiple camps where […]
(GCPEA) – “And now we can go to school!” declared 10-year-old “Pablo,” taking off his cap and using it to gesture towards the small cement and wood structure across the yard. Grabbing me by the hand, he pulled me off the covered patio into the pouring rain, over to the three new classrooms awaiting their first […]
(ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) observed a clear reduction in the impact of the internal armed conflict on the civilian population in Colombia in 2016. The bilateral ceasefire between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government was a milestone and brought about a significant decrease in the […]
(AFP) – Colombia’s FARC rebels have begun removing child soldiers from their ranks as part of a landmark peace deal, the Red Cross said Friday. The leftist guerrillas’ use of underage fighters was one of the thorniest issues in four years of peace talks with the government, which yielded an accord last November to end half a […]
