Some 100 events are planned up until Easter Monday, according to the Bonn-based activist group Netwerk Friedenskooperative (Peace Cooperative Network), which has coordinated the marches this year. Easter marches are reportedly planned for cities including Cologne, Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, Bremen and Stuttgart.
"This is a historic moment," Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a ceremony in the city of Pasto in the southwestern Andean region. He said that in the past two days, the group has handed over land mines, grenades and rockets to an army unit that is destroying them.