Category Archives: Colombia

Dispute in Colombia over whether children found alive in jungle weeks after plane crash

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President spoke of ‘joy for the country’ after four children had been found two weeks after crash, but military sources say they have no confirmation of the news

There was confusion over whether four children from an Indigenous community in Colombia had been found alive following a plane crash, after claims from the country’s president that they had been located were contradicted by military sources.

The children have been missing for more than two weeks after the plane they were travelling in crashed in the dense jungle of Colombia’s Caqueta province, president Gustavo Petro has said.

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Colombia cancels US deportation flights, blasting ‘cruel’ mistreatment of migrants

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Head of Colombia’s migration agency cites degrading treatment by US officials as flights returning citizens suspended

Colombia has suspended US deportation flights returning citizens detained at the Mexico border, because of cruel and degrading treatment by US migration officials and last-minute flight cancellations.

Fernando García, head of Colombia’s migration agency, blasted cruel and degrading treatment that some migrants were subjected to before boarding and during the flights, including use of cuffs for hands and feet.

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Amnesty International criticised for using AI-generated images

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Group has removed AI images used to promote their reports on social media, including fake photos of Colombia’s 2021 protests

While the systemic brutality used by Colombian police to quell national protests in 2021 was real and is well documented, photos recently used by Amnesty International to highlight the issue were not.

The international human rights advocacy group has come under fire for posting images generated by artificial intelligence in order to promote their reports on social media – and has since removed them.

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Indigenous community in Colombia gets its day in court over ‘ancestral land’

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The U’wa people’s case against the Colombian government could help protect the environment across Latin America

After centuries fighting to protect their territory – and 26 years waiting to testify in an international legal dispute – an Andean Indigenous community has finally made its formal declarations against the Colombian state.

The U’wa Indigenous community told the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) that Colombia has repeatedly failed to recognise their ancestral lands and has threatened the group’s existence by polluting their territory with oil.

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Unseen Gabriel García Márquez novel to be published next year

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Colombian author’s En Agosto Now Vemos (We’ll See Each Other in August) had been just a rumour but now fans will get to read it

Rumours had long circulated that an entire literary masterpiece, never seen by the public, could still be lying in a dusty safe held by the late author’s family or under lock and key at his archive at the University of Texas.

On Friday Penguin Random House confirmed that an unpublished Gabriel García Márquez novel – titled En Agosto Nos Vemos, (We’ll See Each Other in August) – not only exists, but will be on shelves across Latin America in 2024.

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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó ejected from Colombia

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Guaidó lands in Miami after failed bid to attend summit hosted by leftwing president, with return to Venezuela looking unlikely

Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, has touched down in the United States after being unceremoniously ejected from Colombia while attempting to gatecrash a summit about the political future of his crisis-stricken homeland.

Guaidó shot to fame in early 2019 and for a brief moment looked poised to topple Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, with the support of dozens of foreign governments including the US, UK and Brazil.

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‘Terrifying’: Critics decry US plan to stop migrants at Darién Gap

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Deal with Colombia and Panama aims to halt refugees crossing the lawless jungle region, but some say dangers will only increase

A US-backed plan to stop migrants from crossing the lawless Darién Gap will likely fail and only push desperate people further into the hands of merciless people-trafficking organisations, migration experts have warned.

The US Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday that it had brokered a deal with the Colombian and Panamanian governments to halt migrants crossing the land bridge on their journey northward to the US.

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Calls for action on Colombia’s hippo scourge after animal dies in road crash

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Dead creature was one of 150 descendants of four hippos imported by drug baron Pablo Escobar in 1980s

Colombia has logged its first hippopotamus-caused road traffic accident after a car crashed into one of the animals at high speed, leaving the vehicle mangled and the two-tonne mammal lying lifeless and bloodied across a highway.

The hippo was declared dead soon after the crash on Tuesday night in the municipality of Doradal on a highway connecting the cities of Bogotá and Medellín, local environmental authorities said.

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Almost half of human rights defenders killed last year were in Colombia

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The county was the deadliest for rights activists in 2022, and Latin America and Ukraine together accounted for 80% of the 401 deaths

Colombia was the deadliest country in the world for human rights defenders in 2022, accounting for 186 killings – or 46% – of the global total registered last year, according to the latest report from the international human rights group Front Line Defenders.

Front Line Defenders found that killings of rights defenders across the globe increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries, compared with 358 deaths in 38 countries registered in 2021.

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Heinz to give new boat to man who survived on ketchup while lost at sea

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Elvis François devoured ketchup while at sea for almost a month and now the brand is providing him a new ride for his dedication

A US ketchup manufacturer is making arrangements to provide a new boat to a man who ate the company’s signature condiment to survive being lost at sea for nearly a month.

The Heinz food company, based in Pittsburgh, has made contact with the saved sailor, Elvis François, about buying him a new sailing vessel after it launched a social media campaign which was titled #FindtheKetchupBoatGuy that quickly went viral. François had abandoned his old boat when he was finally rescued.

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Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report

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Authorities have blamed the growing of coca – the base ingredient of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise

Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.

Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle.

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Colombia to pay reparations for role in extermination of leftwing party

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Inter-American Court of Human Rights concludes state allowed eradication of 6,000 Patriotic Union party members in 1980s

Colombia has pledged to pay reparations to victims after the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) concluded the state allowed the systematic extermination of the leftwing Patriotic Union (UP) party in the 1980s and 90s.

The UP was a political party created out of a peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Farc) guerrillas in 1985 but 6,000 of its members were wiped out by rightwing paramilitaries, narcos and the Colombian military.

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Colombia announces halt on fossil fuel exploration for a greener economy

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The minister for mines, Irene Vélez, told world leaders the country will shift away from fossil fuels to begin a sustainable chapter

Colombia’s leftwing government has announced that it will not approve any new oil and gas exploration projects as it seeks to shift away from fossil fuels and toward a new sustainable economy.

Irene Vélez, the minister for mines told world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the time had come for the Andean nation to move away from its reliance on oil and gas and begin a new, greener chapter in the country’s history.

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Colombia defends minister who led Guatemala corruption inquiry as row deepens

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Country says accusations against Iván Velásquez attempt by Guatemala to ‘persecute’ those investigating high-level corruption

A growing diplomatic row has broken out after Guatemala’s government accused Colombia’s defence minister of breaking the law during his time as the head of a UN-backed anti-corruption mission in Guatemala.

This week, Guatemala announced that Iván Velásquez was being investigated for “illegal, arbitrary and abusive acts” stemming from his inquiry into corruption allegations involving the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht.

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‘Out of your league’: Shakira song mocking ex Gerard Piqué breaks YouTube record

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Video with DJ Bizarrap ridiculing footballer’s new relationship racks up 63m views in 24 hours

A savage new song by Shakira in which the Colombian star, philanthropist and committed believer in the veracity of hips ridicules her former partner Gerard Piqué has logged more than 63m YouTube views in 24 hours, making it the most watched new Latin song in the platform’s history.

Shakira and Piqué, who played football for Barcelona, Manchester United and the Spanish national team, separated last year after more than a decade and have two children. The former centre-back, 35, has since begun a relationship with a 23-year-old woman, Clara Chía.

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Colombia’s ELN guerrilla group denies agreeing to national ceasefire

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Statement contradicts president’s announcement of six-month truce between country’s five largest armed groups

Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla group has contradicted government claims that they had agreed a national ceasefire, in a setback to plans to bring peace to the Andean nation after decades of violence.

President Gustavo Petro had announced on New Year’s Eve that the country’s five largest armed groups had agreed to a six-month truce, but on Tuesday the National Liberation Army (ELN) rejected the claims, saying it had not been consulted on any such plan.

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Colombia revokes amnesty it granted to alleged IRA bomb-making trio

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Men were pardoned in April 2020, but after reviewing evidence the court concluded they had not come clean about their trip

Colombia’s peace tribunal has revoked a controversial amnesty it granted to three alleged IRA members accused of training Colombia’s largest guerrilla group in bomb-making.

Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) had pardoned the trio in April 2020 providing they fully divulge the truth about a trip they made to Colombia in 2001 at the height of the country’s six decades of conflict.

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Colombia activist murders reach record high of 199 this year

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Human rights ombudsman decries ‘alarming and unprecedented figure’ owing to attacked by illegal armed groups tied to drug trade

Colombia will end the year with at least 199 killings of social leaders and human rights defenders – the highest level recorded – due to attacks by illegal armed groups in areas tied to the drug trade, the country’s human rights ombudsman has said.

In the first eleven months of the year, 199 people were murdered, higher than the total number of social leaders and rights defenders killed in 2021 and 2020, when 145 people and 182 people were killed respectively, the ombudsman said.

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Colombia police used torture and sexual harassment to quell protests – Amnesty

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Police accused of gender-based rights violations against women and LGBTQ+ people as they cracked down on protests in 2021

Colombian police used sexual harassment, torture and forced nudity to target women and LGBTIQ+ people as they cracked down on a nationwide wave of protests in 2021, a report by Amnesty International has found.

National and anti-riot police units committed hundreds of acts of gender-based human rights violations in its response to protests, the Amnesty investigation revealed.

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Colombian government and leftist ELN guerrillas begin new peace talks

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Negotiations in Caracas are part of President Gustavo Petro’s promise to bring ‘total peace’ and end nearly 60 years of civil war

Negotiators from the Colombian government and the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group have begun fresh peace talks, the first major step in President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to end nearly 60 years of war.

Petro, a former member of the M-19 insurgency who took office in August, has promised to bring “total peace” to Colombia by negotiating with rebels and crime factions involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.

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