Colombia

Deadly violence targeting community leaders and rights defenders in Colombia reduced slightly in 2024, according to a prominent conflict monitor.

Welcoming progress made towards peace across Colombia amid the Government’s outreach efforts with women, youth and ethnic groups, the Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia for one year to monitor and verify implementation of a ceasefire between the Government and armed groups.

Ahead of the eighth anniversary of Colombia’s peace agreement next month which ended a five-decades-long insurgency, the UN’s envoy to the country highlighted both “historic progress” and significant remaining challenges on Tuesday. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, told the Security Council that recent Government initiatives reflected an “important re-centreing” of the peace process.

On 17 September, fighters from Colombia’s largest remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), fired rockets from the back of a truck into a military base in Puerto Jordán in eastern Colombia. It was also a devastating blow to leftist President Gustavo Petro’s ambitious “Total Peace” plan, which aimed at moving away from failed military solutions to decades of conflict and at establishing a dialogue with criminal armed groups in return for their disarmament.

Negotiators of Colombia’s government suspended peace talks with guerrilla group ELN in response to an attack that killed two soldiers and injured 25. In a statement, the negotiators said that the peace talks’ “viability is severely damaged, and their continuity can only be recovered with an unequivocal manifestation of the ELN’s will for peace.”

Colombia, host nation for this year's United Nations COP16 biodiversity conference, was the deadliest country for environmentalists and land rights defenders in 2023, with a record 79 killed, according to UK advocacy group Global Witness.

Colombia’s armed forces have resumed military operations against the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) after a ceasefire deal expired, the defense minister said Monday. … After the ceasefire ended, the ELN’s peace delegation accused the Colombian government of non-compliance with agreements signed during negotiations since the end of 2022. 

Colombia's government has ended a ceasefire with some factions of the EMC rebels, led by commander Ivan Mordisco, who reject peace talks, the defense ministry said on Tuesday. The Estado Mayor Central (EMC) was formed by dissident former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters who themselves reject a 2016 peace deal with the state.

Chiquita must compensate victims of paramilitary organization AUC, which received financial support of the banana corporation in Colombia, a US court ruled. 

Negotiators of Colombia’s government and ELN guerrillas successfully ended talks on the first of six points on the peace talks agenda. … The partial agreement is a major advance for the talks that were initiated by the ELN and former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2017.