Kolumbien

The vice-president of Colombia’s senate said he would ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate President Ivan Duque over the bombing of a FARC dissident camp that killed at least eight children.

[…] The number of indigenous people killed in the area has risen sharply as armed groups seek to seize control of the power vacuum left by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after they demobilised as part of the 2016 peace deal. … The UN has documented 52 murders of indigenous people in the northern part of Cauca this year alone.

An indigenous leader, Cristina Bautista, and four volunteer community guards have been killed in south-west Colombia. The security forces say that members of a dissident rebel group are behind the attack in Cauca province. … Dozens of Nasa, many of them members of the guard, have been killed this year. The United Nations has urged the Colombian government to do more to protect its indigenous people.

[…] Election violence is again on the rise after dropping to an all-time low, according to independent monitoring groups. In all, seven candidates have been killed and dozens more threatened in the lead-up to Sunday's vote in a worrying sign that old patterns of violence are persisting even without rebels targeting polling sites.

Seven candidates have been killed and more than 60 others have been attacked in the lead up to the October 27 election.

The implementation of a peace deal with former FARC guerrillas implies more than the policies currently outlined by the Colombian government, according to the United Nations. In his quarterly report to the Security Council, Secretary General Antonio Guterres highlighted advances made in the reintegration of former FARC guerrillas and development in historically violent areas.

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque is dismantling the peace process that sought to end armed conflict in his country, hundreds of human rights organizations reported Thursday. In a crushing report for the European Parliament, approximately 500 organizations said that the government is “stagnating” and “simulating” the implementation of the 2016 peace deal.

Colombia will increase protection for political candidates running in October's local and regional elections after the murders of seven aspirants, President Ivan Duque said on Monday. The killings have sparked renewed calls for more to be done to prevent political violence in the country, where hundreds of community leaders and human rights activists have also been murdered.

The European Union’s foreign minister told Colombia’s President Ivan Duque on Thursday he can forget about support for military intervention in Venezuela and ought to proceed with his country’s peace process. EU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini’s visit couldn’t have come at a more delicate moment; Duque has been under immense pressure over his government’s failures to implement a peace deal with demobilized FARC guerrillas while stirring up military tensions with Venezuela.