Allegation comes as nation reels from similarly horrific crime and prompted protests in Bogotá
Colombian soldiers have been accused of raping a 15-year-old indigenous girl, in the second such case to emerge in a week.
Troops in the southern Guaviare region were accused in September of kidnapping, torturing and repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl from the Nukak Makú tribe, but the case was not widely reported until this week.
Continue reading...Seven soldiers confessed to raping child from the Emberà tribe
Outrage has been sparked in Colombia after a 13-year-old girl was gang-raped by seven soldiers from the country’s army last weekend.
On Thursday, seven soldiers confessed to raping the child from the indigenous Emberá tribe, who went missing from her rural reserve in northern Colombia on Sunday. She was found the next day at a nearby school. News of the horrific crime shocked much of the South American nation, which has long reckoned with violence against indigenous women and girls.
Continue reading...Authorities are forcing people from homes they say were unlawfully built during a nationwide quarantine
Don Pacho has been running from the rival factions of Colombia’s civil war his whole life. Now, he’s running from the police, as authorities in the country’s capital push on with a wave of evictions despite a strict coronavirus lockdown.
Hundreds of Bogotá’s poorest residents are caught between two brutal forces: a nationwide quarantine that makes working impossible and authorities forcing people from homes they say were unlawfully built.
Continue reading...The son of a notorious death squad leader has been appointed to run the Colombian government’s programmes for victims of the country’s long civil war, prompting fury among survivors.
Jorge Rodrigo Tovar was this week put in charge of a scheme for compensating victims of the conflict – many of whom were terrorised by his father, Rodrigo Tovar, better known in Colombia as “Jorge 40”.
Continue reading...Authorities have struggled to enforce social distancing at the trading centres. At one Lima market, 79% of vendors had coronavirus
Four out of five merchants at a major fruit market in Peru have tested positive for coronavirus, revealing shocking levels of infection – and prompting fears that Latin America’s traditional trading centres may have helped spread Covid-19 across the region.
Seventy-nine per cent of stall-holders in Lima’s wholesale fruit market tested positive for Covid-19, while spot tests at five other large fresh food markets in the city revealed at least half were carrying the virus.
Continue reading...Caracas has accused Colombia and US of plotting to overthrow president Maduro; says military found abandoned vessels in Orinoco river
Venezuela’s military says it has seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found while patrolling the Orinoco river on Saturday, several days after the government accused its neighbour of aiding a failed invasion plot.
In a statement, the defence ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela’s “freedom and sovereignty”.
Continue reading...While men and women can go out on alternate days, trans people in the Colombian capital face increasing risk of violent attacks
A policy of making men and women leave their homes on alternate days during lockdown in Bogotá is fuelling violence towards the transgender community by the police and the public, activists say.
The mayor of the Colombian capital, Claudia López, announced last month that women were permitted to go outdoors for essential tasks on even-numbered days and men on odd-numbered days, in an effort to limit numbers on the streets.
Continue reading...Men fled country while on bail after their arrest in 2001 and a highly-publicised trial
Three alleged IRA members accused of training Colombian rebels in bomb-making techniques have been granted amnesty nearly two decades after they were arrested, as part of the South American nation’s ongoing peace process.
Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley, who became known as the Colombia Three, were arrested at Bogotá’s El Dorado airport in 2001. They were charged with travelling on false documents and teaching members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc) how to build improvised mortar bombs.
Continue reading...Families struggle to maintain coronavirus restrictions as they seek to stay afloat: ‘My fear is my children going hungry’
Leaders across Latin America have ordered their citizens indoors as they struggle to tame the coronavirus.
But for Liliana Pérez, an Argentinian single mother of six, staying at home is a pipe dream.
Continue reading...A full-scale disaster unfolded as we switched our phones back on after nine days of Colombian beaches and jungles
You can learn a lot about yourself in times of crisis, but you learn a hell of a lot more about the person you weather said crisis with. Best to strap in and bite your tongue. A lifetime of three weeks ago, my clever, rational other half and I went on a holiday to Colombia. He’s a man who rarely travels without a first aid kit, gaffer tape and a multi-tool thing allegedly essential for “survival”. I rarely travel without what he assumes are decadent luxuries – basic toiletries, to the rest of us – and three more books than I could possibly read. It’s a delightful match.
For eight or so days, we adventured on the country’s Caribbean coastline, trekked the jungle and landed on remote beaches far away from phone signal. It’s fair to say we were late to the memo. Turning our phones on after a self-imposed period of isolation was like watching a disaster film unfold. First, on a six-inch screen squinting at ticker tapes of rolling news. Then in full-blown Technicolor as Cartagena went into lockdown, with face masks being dealt out on street corners and a strict curfew enforced by police.
Continue reading...Three social leaders were killed last week after quarantine measures were introduced
Death squads in Colombia are taking advantage of coronavirus lockdowns to murder rural activists, local NGOs have warned.
Related: 'Staggering number' of human rights activists killed in Colombia, UN reports
Continue reading...More than 80 prisoners injured in protests against sanitary conditions in jail
A prison riot in Colombia’s capital Bogotá left 23 prisoners dead and 83 injured, the country’s justice minister said on Sunday, as detainees protested about sanitary conditions amid the global outbreak of coronavirus.
Thirty-two injured prisoners had been hospitalised, justice minister Margarita Cabello Blanco said in a video, while seven prison guards were also injured. Two guards were in a critical condition.
Continue reading...Despite a peace accord aimed at improving conditions in rural areas controlled by illegal armed groups, 107 defenders died in 2019
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm at the “staggering number” of social activists killed in Colombia despite a peace accord aimed at improving conditions in poor, rural areas.
According to the UN, 107 human rights defenders were killed in 2019, a worrying number that could grow to 120 as investigations are completed. At least 10 activists have been reported killed in the first two weeks of 2020.
Continue reading...Colombia was the bloodiest nation with 103 murders and the Philippines was second, followed by Brazil, Honduras and Mexico
More than 300 human rights defenders working to protect the environment, free speech, LGBTQ rights and indigenous lands in 31 countries were killed in 2019, a new report reveals.
Two thirds of the total killings took place in Latin America where impunity from prosecution is the norm.
Continue reading...Graffiti, cooking and breakdancing are some of the attractions bringing visitors to Medellin’s once-feared district
Continue reading...Wave of protests and violence against austerity measures and political corruption swept Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and other Latin American countries
Continue reading...Outrage has erupted in Colombia after a young woman participating in anti-government protests was grabbed by riot police in body armour, forced into an unmarked vehicle and driven away.
Video of the incident showed the woman sobbing and screaming “Help! The police have kidnapped me!” through the window of the black Chevrolet sedan as it drove away from the demonstration near the National University in Bogotá on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Protests put more pressure on unpopular president Iván Duque, who is engaged in a ‘national dialogue’ with strike organisers
Colombians have taken to the streets for a third national strike in two weeks, piling more pressure on the unpopular rightwing president, Iván Duque, and his proposed tax reforms.
Thousands thronged the streets of Bogotá, the capital, shutting down much of the city’s historic centre, indicating that the unrest will continue while Duque engages in a “national dialogue” with strike organisers.
Continue reading...Fatal explosion at police station in south-west also injured 10 officers amid 9pm curfew in capital
Three police were killed in a bomb blast at a police station in Colombia after thousands gathered for renewed protests and sporadic looting erupted in the capital, Bogotá.
A police source said 10 officers were also injured in the explosion late on Friday in the town of Santander de Quilichao, in the south-western province of Cauca, known as a hot spot for drug trafficking and violence.
The source did not attribute the bombing to a particular armed group. Police are expected to hold a news conference on Saturday morning.
The blast came after demonstrations flared again in several parts of Bogotá a day after mass marches ended in three deaths.
After more than 250,000 people marched on Thursday to express growing discontent with president Iván Duque’s government, another large crowd gathered on Friday afternoon in Bogotá’s Bolívar Plaza.
Continue reading...Violent clashes broke out in Bogotá's storied Bolívar Square on Thursday with police using thick clouds of teargas and water cannon to disperse protesters amassed there. People fleeing the scene were visibly affected by clouds of noxious gas. Earlier in the day, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the country to demand the government maintain the minimum wage for young people and the universal right to a pension, even though the authorities have repeatedly denied they are considering those changes
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