• Human Rights Defenders

Defending our rights: A call to action against Glencore. A coordinated campaign by affected communities and allied organisations, brought together under the coalition Resistencia Activa Ya!, which is calling for stronger international action and accountability against the multinational mining company Glencore. Highlighting allegations that Glencore’s global operations are linked to environmental destruction, water contamination, health impacts, and human rights violations in multiple countries, including Colombia, where communities near large-scale projects such as coal mines have reported loss of access to water and negative health effects.

In 2026 there have been 49 massacres and 203 victims, according to figures from the Ombudsman’s Office. Colombia is experiencing a continued surge in violence in 2026, with the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo) recording 49 massacres so far this year, leaving 203 victims. The findings underline that the country’s security situation remains highly volatile, with massacres occurring across multiple regions where armed groups, including guerrillas, criminal organisations and splinter factions, continue to contest territorial control. The figures add to growing concern that 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most violent years in recent times, despite government efforts under the “Total Peace” policy.

Friends and family of Mateo Pérez Rueda pay tribute to him: “The guerrillas tortured and murdered the journalist who kept an eye on those in power in Yarumal.” The funeral and public tributes for Colombian journalist Mateo Pérez Rueda, a 25-year-old reporter from Yarumal who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a dissident faction of the FARC while carrying out investigative work in Antioquia. Pérez Rueda, who directed the local outlet El Confidente, had been covering corruption and armed group activity in a region heavily affected by conflict when he was abducted in early May and later found dead after a humanitarian search operation. Authorities have attributed the crime to the Frente 36 dissidents.

• Conflict, Victims and Peace Talks

At least 20 killed in Colombia highway blast. At least 20 people were killed and dozens more injured after a powerful bomb exploded on the Pan-American Highway in Colombia’s Cauca department, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent years and amid rising violence ahead of the country’s presidential election. Authorities said the explosion, which tore through a bus and several nearby vehicles in the municipality of Cajibío, was likely carried out by dissident FARC factions linked to Iván Mordisco. The bombing formed part of a wider wave of coordinated attacks across Cauca, including assaults on police and military installations.

Two presidential campaign staffers killed in Colombia as elections near.An attack in central Colombia has heightened fears over political violence ahead of the country’s presidential election, after former mayor Rogers Devia and campaign staffer Eder Cardona, both linked to far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella’s campaign, were shot dead in the municipality of Cubarral in Meta province. Authorities also revealed they had recently foiled another planned attack targeting a staff member of presidential candidate Paloma Valencia.

Drones reshape war in Colombia as deaths and injuries mount. Armed groups in Colombia are increasingly using weaponised commercial drones in attacks that are transforming the country’s decades-long conflict and placing civilians at growing risk, according to analysts and security officials. A report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) found drone strikes rose dramatically from a single recorded incident in 2023 to more than 300 in 2025, with dissident factions of the former FARC rebels and the ELN guerrilla group adapting inexpensive drones to carry explosives in “kamikaze”-style assaults.

ELN announces unilateral ceasefire until June 2nd for elections. The group said the measure is intended to allow citizens to vote freely and without interference and framed it as a gesture of respect for the democratic process. The ceasefire is not the result of any formal agreement with the state, as peace talks between the ELN and government have previously stalled.

One deputy lieutenant killed and six wounded in drone attack in Suárez (Cauca). According to military sources, the troops were operating in the area when they were targeted by drones allegedly operated by the Jaime Martínez structure, a FARC dissident group.

Petro plays his last card of total peace with the Gulf Clan. President Petro is making what is described as a final and high-risk push to salvage his “Total Peace” policy by advancing negotiations with the Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s largest and most powerful criminal armed organisation, just days before the 31 May 2026 presidential election. The plan includes establishing temporary “zones of location” where around 400 fighters would cease armed activity while talks continue, with discussions having taken place discreetly in Doha since 2025. The initiative is framed as an attempt to replicate elements of previous demobilisation processes, but it faces significant legal, political and international resistance, particularly from Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office, which opposes suspending arrest warrants for several members, and from the United States, which designates the group as a terrorist organisation.

700 Polling Stations Under Threat in Colombia Ahead of the 2026 Elections. Colombia’s Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) and the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares) have warned that more than 700 polling stations across the country could face threats or disruption during the 2026 presidential election due to the presence and activity of armed groups. The risk is particularly acute in departments such as Cauca, Nariño, Chocó, Arauca and parts of the Caribbean region, where guerrilla factions, criminal organisations and FARC dissident groups continue to exert territorial control and influence local populations.

The 2016 Peace Agreement has made remarkable progress, although structural problems in the country remain the main challenge to achieving sustainable peace. A report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement with the former FARC guerrilla movement, concluding that the accord has achieved significant progress but remains threatened by deep structural problems and ongoing violence. Among the main achievements highlighted are the disarmament and reintegration of thousands of former combatants, the FARC’s transition into a political party, expanded political participation and advances in land formalisation and rural reform. However, the report warns that implementation has been uneven and that many transformative aspects of the agreement, particularly comprehensive rural reform, security guarantees, crop substitution and ethnic and gender provisions, remain incomplete.

Arrest in Bolivia Signals Transnational Expansion of Colombian Gangs. Bolivian authorities have captured Jorge Isaac Campaz Jiménez, known as “Mapaya”, an alleged senior leader of the Colombian criminal group Los Espartanos, during a police operation near Santa Cruz de la Sierra. According to investigators, Mapaya led one of the most powerful criminal organisations operating in Buenaventura, Colombia’s main Pacific port, where Los Espartanos have been involved in extortion, drug trafficking, targeted killings and territorial disputes with rival gangs such as Los Shottas. Bolivian police said the arrest followed a shootout during a raid on a property in Paurito, resulting in the detention of Mapaya alongside several other Colombians and Bolivians allegedly linked to the organisation. Colombian authorities had reportedly been searching for him since he fled house arrest in 2021, and Bogotá is now expected to seek his extradition.

Colombia’s ELN guerrillas sentence captured prosecutors to 5 years in “revolutionary prison”. Colombia’s ELN guerrilla group announced it had sentenced two captured prosecutors to five years in what it described as a “revolutionary prison”, accusing them of corruption and collaboration with criminal organisations in the northeastern department of Arauca. The prosecutors, who were abducted in May 2025, were presented in a video released by the ELN in which the group claimed they had participated in illegal activities benefiting rival armed actors and local elites. Colombian authorities condemned the announcement as illegal kidnapping and demanded the immediate release of the officials.

“Fernando Gómez”, one of the main recruiters of minors for the dissident groups, dies. Fernando Gómez, a senior figure within FARC dissident structures, has been killed during a military operation in rural Colombia, where he was among several combatants killed in clashes with the armed forces. Authorities described him as one of the most important recruiters of minors for illegal armed groups, alleging that he had spent years drawing children and adolescents into guerrilla “training schools” in Cauca and Huila, where they were indoctrinated and taught to handle weapons and explosives. He was also accused of coordinating attacks against security forces, including drone and explosive assaults on police installations.

This is how they search for the missing amidst the war in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Unit for the Search of Missing Persons (UBPD) is carrying out recovery and identification work in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Despite the ongoing presence of violence and territorial control by illegal armed actors, forensic teams are working in coordination with humanitarian agreements, often relying on information provided by former combatants, detainees and community members, to locate clandestine graves and recover the remains of people who disappeared during the armed conflict.

• Business, Human Rights, Environment and Indigenous peoples

Nine workers killed in Colombia coal mine explosion. Nine miners were killed and six others injured after an explosion caused by a build-up of gases ripped through the La Ciscuda coal mine in the municipality of Sutatausa, in Colombia’s Cundinamarca province. Colombia’s National Mining Agency said the mine had been inspected only weeks earlier and warned operators about dangerous accumulations of methane and coal dust, recommending preventive safety measures that may not have been fully implemented. Rescue teams managed to save six workers while recovering the bodies of the victims from the underground shafts.

Invasive plant threatens livelihoods in Colombia’s largest coastal wetland. An international training programme held in Colombia has brought together scientists and marine researchers from across the Caribbean to improve monitoring of microplastic pollution, as concern grows over the environmental and health impacts of plastic waste in the region. Hosted by Colombia’s Institute for Marine and Coastal Research (INVEMAR) with support from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the initiative focused on teaching laboratories how to detect and analyse microplastics in marine ecosystems using advanced scientific techniques.

• Women and Gender Based Violence

Takeaways from AP’s interview with Colombian woman deported to Congo by US. A Colombian woman deported by the Trump administration to the Democratic Republic of Congo despite legal protections in the United States has described being stranded in an unfamiliar country under tightly controlled conditions. The woman, who had previously been granted protection under the UN Convention Against Torture after fleeing threats from armed groups and domestic abuse in Colombia, told the Associated Press she was detained during a routine immigration check-in before being flown to Congo in restraints alongside other Latin American migrants.

Totó la Momposina, vocalist and Colombian music legend, dies aged 85. Totó la Momposina, the celebrated Colombian singer who brought cumbia, bullerengue and porro to international audiences, has died aged 85 after suffering a heart attack. Born Sonia Bazanta Vides in Talaigua Nuevo, northern Colombia, she became one of the country’s most influential cultural figures through her powerful performances and commitment to preserving Afro-Colombian and Indigenous musical traditions. After being blacklisted in Colombia in 1979 because of her left-wing political views, she spent years in exile in France before achieving global recognition through her collaboration with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label and the acclaimed 1993 album La Candela Viva. Totó also performed alongside Gabriel García Márquez during the writer’s 1982 Nobel Prize celebrations and later received a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to Latin American music.

Yulixa Tolosa’s body found on a road six days after her disappearance. The body of Yulixa Tolosa, a 52-year-old woman who had been missing for six days, was found on a roadside in Apulo, Cundinamarca, around 100 kilometres from Bogotá. She had disappeared on 13 May after undergoing a cosmetic procedure at an illegal aesthetic clinic in the south of the capital.

Murders of LGBTI people have skyrocketed by 64% in Colombia. A sharp increase in violence against LGBTI people in Colombia, with killings rising by around 63% according to data from the NGO Caribe Afirmativo. Highlights that at least 270 LGBTI people were murdered in 2025, marking a significant escalation compared with the previous year and continuing a broader pattern of targeted violence against sexual and gender minorities.

Dissidents from ‘Calarcá’ kill four soldiers in Guaviare. Four soldiers of the Colombian Army were killed and three others injured after stepping on improvised explosive devices planted by FARC dissidents known as the “Calarcá” group, in a rural area of San José del Guaviare.Bottom of Form

• Civil Society and Protests

Navigating the Shift: New Kroc Institute Report Maps the Future of Colombian Peace Amidst Pivotal Political Transition. The Kroc Institute’s latest report on the implementation of Colombia’s 2016 Peace Accord warns that the country is entering a decisive political transition that will determine whether the agreement’s long-term promises can still be fulfilled. Drawing on monitoring data from December 2024 to November 2025, the report finds that only 36% of the accord’s 578 commitments have been fully implemented, while nearly 43% remain at minimal or non-existent levels of implementation, with especially severe delays affecting gender and ethnic provisions. Despite notable progress in areas such as land redistribution and transitional justice, including the Special Jurisdiction for Peace issuing its first restorative sentences, the report argues that implementation remains uneven and disconnected from the realities of continued violence in many territories.

Indigenous Amazon groups urge the UN to curb organized crime, not militarize territories. Indigenous organisations from across the Amazon basin, including groups from Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, have urged the UN to confront the growing influence of organised crime in Indigenous territories while warning against militarised state responses that they say often worsen conditions for local communities. In a joint letter addressed to UN agencies and member states, the organisations said illegal mining, drug trafficking, logging and land grabbing are fuelling violence, environmental destruction and attacks on Indigenous leaders throughout the Amazon, while weakening traditional systems of governance and territorial control.

Red Cross says people displaced by conflict in Colombia doubled last year. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that Colombia experienced its worst humanitarian crisis in a decade in 2025, with the number of people displaced by armed conflict doubling compared with the previous year as violence intensified between guerrilla groups, criminal organisations and state forces. According to the ICRC, more than 235,000 people were displaced, while many rural communities were trapped under confinement measures imposed by armed groups, preventing residents from accessing food, healthcare and education. The report highlighted a sharp rise in civilian casualties caused by explosives and landmines, alongside growing concerns over forced recruitment of children and attacks on Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities.

Expanding Armed Power: Between the Strengthening and Fragmentation of Armed Groups in Colombia. Colombia’s armed groups have simultaneously strengthened and fragmented in recent years, despite government peace initiatives under President Petro. This report by CORE finds that organisations such as the Clan del Golfo (EGC), the ELN and multiple FARC dissident factions have expanded their territorial control, recruitment and economic power, with the total number of fighters across the main armed groups rising from roughly 13,000 in 2018 to more than 27,000 by the end of 2025. It stresses that this growth is driven not only by military capacity but also by increased influence over illicit economies such as cocaine production, illegal gold mining and extortion, as well as greater political and social control in local communities. At the same time, the armed landscape has become increasingly fragmented, with splinter groups and rival factions competing violently for territory, particularly in regions such as Cauca, Catatumbo, Guaviare and Chocó.

Security Challenges Impacting the Exit of Individuals from Armed and Criminal Groups in Colombia * This report by CORE, produced with UNIDIR under the MEAC initiative, examines the major security, legal and socioeconomic challenges faced by former members of Colombian armed and criminal groups attempting to leave violence behind and reintegrate into civilian life. Based on surveys conducted in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Cundinamarca between 2022 and 2025, the study finds that ex-combatants participating in Colombia’s Differential Assistance Process remain highly vulnerable to threats, including retaliation from former organisations, pressure to rejoin armed structures, extortion, stigmatisation and insecurity linked to the continued expansion of illegal groups. The report argues that weak economic opportunities, unstable housing, limited institutional support and fears for personal and family safety significantly undermine reintegration efforts and increase risk.

The dispute over young people in Popayán. “La disputa por los jóvenes en Popayán”, examines how young people in the city, particularly in marginalised urban neighbourhoods, are being drawn into escalating tensions between state security forces and armed or criminal structures, amid a broader context of social protest, stigmatisation, and territorial control disputes. It highlights concerns that young people are often framed by authorities as delinquent actors or potential collaborators with illegal armed groups without due process, a practice that can expose them to heightened risks, including threats and violence. The piece situates this “dispute” over youth within longstanding structural issues in Popayán and the Cauca region, such as poverty, exclusion, limited opportunities, and the presence of multiple armed actors competing for influence. It also underscores the role of community organisations and human rights defenders who argue that instead of criminalisation, young people require state protection, social investment, and pathways away from violence.

• International and Domestic Politics

13 men killed by US military boat strikes identified: ‘These were flesh-and-blood people’. A joint investigation by the Latin American Centre for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) has identified 13 previously unnamed victims of US military airstrikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, part of a wider campaign that has killed nearly 200 people since 2025. The strikes, carried out under Operation Southern Spear, have largely involved small vessels intercepted in international waters, but journalists and human rights groups say there is little public evidence that those targeted were actually involved in drug trafficking, with many victims believed to be fishermen, labourers or migrants from countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and several Caribbean states.

Bolivia expels Colombia’s ambassador following tensions with Gustavo Petro. Bolivia has expelled Colombia’s ambassador, Elizabeth García Carrillo, amid rising diplomatic tensions triggered by comments from Colombian President Petro on Bolivia’s internal unrest. Petro recently described the situation in Bolivia as a “popular insurrection” and called for international attention to alleged political repression, remarks which Bolivia’s government interpreted as unacceptable interference in its domestic affairs. In response, the Bolivian foreign ministry ordered the envoy to leave the country, though it clarified that the move does not amount to a full break in diplomatic relations between the two states.