#armed-groups

#armed-groups

As night fell over southern Colombia, and a group of children began their weekly Tuesday football match, a drone appeared overhead. The children looked up, and the drone dropped a grenade, its blast killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring 12 more civilians. The child's death, in southern Cauca in 2024, marked the first known time a person in the country had been killed in a weaponised drone attack. He would not be the last.

A high-pitched voice, recorded somewhere in Guaviare, at the gateway to the Amazon in southern Colombia, echoed across the country on Thursday. I hope our comrade [Ivan] Cepeda wins, because then we'll really put the pressure on them for another four years, says the man, a purported leader of one of the many dissident groups of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Cepeda the leftist presidential candidate, leading in the polls has rejected any support from the armed groups that terrorize hundreds of thousands of Colombians every day, but the audio is a reminder of the power these underground forces can wield in an election.

Brazil plans to send national guard troops to northern Roraima state, which borders Venezuela and has a strong presence of illegal armed groups who traffic drugs and mine illegally on both sides of the international boundary, according to a government decree. In an official decree published on Thursday, the government authorised an unspecified number of National Public Security Force (FNSP) troops to be sent to Pacaraima, as well as Roraima's capital, Boa Vista, about 213km (132 miles) from the border.

At the Simon Bolivar International Bridge, which spans the Tachira River separating Colombia and Venezuela near the border city of Cucuta, vehicle and foot traffic flowed normally on Monday despite an increased military presence, which included three parked Colombian M1117 armoured security vehicles. But with United States President Donald Trump threatening more attacks if newly sworn-in interim leader Delcy Rodriguez does not behave, an uneasy calm has settled over the border region, and Colombia is preparing for the worst.

In spring last year, Ana's* friends began to disappear. Members of an armed group had begun recruiting children in her village in Colombia's north-west region of Norte de Santander, promising them food, money, mobile phones and motorcycles. They began taking all of the young people, the boys and the girls, my friends from school. I was so scared, I had to shut myself away, says Ana, then 14.