Thursday, May 14, 2026

Latest News

Explosive Drone Deactivated Near Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombian authorities have seized and safely deactivated a commercial drone carrying improvised explosive materials just 5.4 kilometers from Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport and the nearby Military Air Transport Command (CATAM), raising fresh security concerns in the capital three weeks before the country’s May 31 presidential election. The discovery marks a significant escalation from recent […]

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Colombia reels from worst terrorist attack in decades as Petro celebrates birthday

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombians are expressing outrage and grief after a bombing attributed to dissident factions of the former FARC killed 20 people and left injured 46, marking the country’s deadliest attack in over a decade. The blast on Saturday afternoon tore through a stretch of the Pan-American Highway near Cajibío, in the southwestern department of Cauca, leaving […]

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FARC dissident ‘Iván Mordisco’ alive but wounded after major military bombardment

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombia’s security forces believe FARC dissident leader Iván Mordisco is alive but seriously wounded following a major aerial bombardment in the remote department of Vaupés, dealing a significant blow to one of the country’s most powerful armed groups. Uncertainty over the fate of Mordisco — whose real name is Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández — mounted […]

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Colombia – Ecuador rift widens over cross-border bombings

By The City Paper Staff -

President Gustavo Petro accused Ecuador on Monday of carrying out bombing raids inside Colombian territory, sharply escalating a diplomatic and trade dispute that has been simmering since January. Petro said “27 charred bodies” have been found near the border and suggested the attacks could not have been carried out by illegal armed groups, though he […]

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Indigenous communities caught in armed clashes in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s high-altitude Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has become the latest flashpoint in the country’s worsening rural security crisis, after armed clashes between illegal groups left Indigenous communities trapped in the crossfire and triggered a humanitarian evacuation mission. Authorities confirmed that at least nine wounded civilians, including two minors, were evacuated following heavy fighting between […]

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Ex-FARC admit to recruiting 18,677 children during Colombia conflict

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s transitional justice system has reached a morally charged milestone. The seven former commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) guerrilla have formally accepted responsibility for the recruitment of 18,677 minors during the country’s decades-long internal conflict, acknowledging not only the scale of the practice but also the sexual and reproductive abuses that […]

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Suspected drone attack disrupts high-level visit to Colombia’s Hidroituango

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombia’s security forces alerted late Sunday Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez and Antioquia Governor Andrés Julián Rendón to cancel a planned visit to the Hidroituango hydroelectric complex for Monday, March 2, after intelligence warnings of a possible drone attack and credible terrorist threat. The visit, which included a press conference expected to draw around 100 journalists, […]

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As Fighting Engulfs Briceño, Colombia, Schools Forced to Close

By The City Paper Staff -

The school year had barely begun when gunfire forced children in rural northern Colombia to cower under their desks in fear and silence. On the same day students were returning to classrooms after the Christmas and New Year holidays, fighting between illegal armed groups erupted near Briceño, in the northeast of Antioquia. By nightfall, schools […]

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Federal Jury Awards Drummond $256 Million in Colombia Defamation Case

By The City Paper Staff -

A federal jury in the United States has awarded coal producer Drummond Company Inc. $256 million after finding that a prominent human-rights attorney and his associates orchestrated a campaign of false accusations linking the company to paramilitary violence in Colombia. The verdict, delivered on January 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District […]

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Colombia records 40,663 murders under Petro, surpassing Santos and Duque

By The City Paper Staff -

Colombia has recorded 40,663 homicides during the first three years of President Gustavo Petro’s government, surpassing the totals reported under the administrations of Iván Duque and Juan Manuel Santos, according to a report published Tuesday by the Centro de Paz y Seguridad of Universidad Externado. The report documents killings between August 2022 and August 2025, […]

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Child Recruitment in Colombia Surges 300 Percent Warns UNICEF

By The City Paper Staff -

Every 20 hours, somewhere in Colombia, a child vanishes into the ranks of an illegal armed group. That is the grim calculation released this week by UNICEF and the United Nations, which warn that the forced recruitment of minors has surged to levels not seen in decades, undermining Colombia’s efforts to contain its internal conflict. […]

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Colombia Confirms 15 Minors Killed in Army Bombings Against FARC Dissidents

By The City Paper Staff -

The Colombian government of President Gustavo Petro has acknowledged that at least 15 minors recruited by illegal armed groups were killed in four military operations carried out between August and November, after a report by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine revealed a higher number of child casualties than initially disclosed by the Defence Ministry. […]

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Palace of Justice: Forty Years, Four Peace Processes, and No Peace

By Luis Guillermo Plata -

I remember perfectly the morning of November 6, 1985. I was 18 years old, a high school conscript serving in the Presidential Guard Battalion. Chaos reigned. Commanders shouted orders as we deployed in trucks and on foot – not only toward Plaza de Bolívar, but to different corners of Bogotá. No one knew where the […]

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Colombia Marks 40 Years Since Palace of Justice Siege by M-19

By Richard Emblin -

Forty years after one of the darkest chapters in Colombia’s modern history, the country is commemorating the 1985 Palace of Justice siege amid fierce controversy over President Gustavo Petro’s attempts to reinterpret and elevate the legacy of the M-19 — the guerrilla to which he once belonged and which unleashed one of the bloodiest attacks […]

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Petro lashes out at Trump after U.S. decertifies Colombia on drug fight

By Richard Emblin -

Colombia’s Gustavo Petro lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump after Washington decertified Colombia’s anti-drug efforts, calling the move an “injustice.” Petro defended record cocaine seizures, vowed not to extradite three traffickers engaged in peace talks, and accused the U.S. of a failed, decades-long drug policy.

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