Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
The much-anticipated report was produced by the National Center of Historical Memory, which was created under a 2011 law designed to indemnify victims of the conflict and return stolen land. The law prefaced peace talks now being held in Cuba with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the countrys main leftist rebel group. The 434-page report, titled Enough Already: Memories of War and Dignity, says most of the killings occurred after far-right militias backed by ranchers and cocaine traffickers emerged in the 1980s to counter the FARC and other leftist rebels.
Center director Gonzalo Sanchez, who presented the report to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, said the rightist paramilitaries did more killing, while rebels kidnapped more and caused more destruction. We must recognize that we have hit bottom and that war dehumanizes and dehumanizes us, said Santos, who has had a difficult week as commander in chief, with 21 soldiers killed by the FARC in a single day last weekend. Sanchez said the report shows that we have serious problems as a society. The only way to end this horror is to consolidate a peace process. Thats the only way to stop it, he said.
Sanchez said the conflicts most violent period was 1996 to 2002, the apogee of paramilitarism that included most of the militias most notorious massacres, as well as the FARCs biggest military victories and failed peace talks with the peasant-based rebel army. From 1996 to 2005, on average, someone was kidnapped every eight hours in Colombia and every day someone fell victim to an anti-personnel mine, the report says. The FARC vowed to halt ransom kidnappings last year as a condition for the peace talks, while mines continue to claim victims. The report documents 1,982 massacres between 1980 and last year, attributing 1,166 to paramilitaries.
More than 220,000 dead in conflict in Colombia - Taipei Times
Albeidis Buitrago was working as a nurse in Madrid before his arrest on Sunday, the National Police said. Colombia is seeking his extradition. "This man would have been responsible for the execution of more than 500 forced abortions by guerrillas who had been raped by members of the organization," the National Police said in a statement. "Among these women were 50 girls of the Choco Zabaleta indigenous community, who were found to be forcibly recruited."
The FARC hierarchy is accused of disseminating a decree that said it would punish guerrilla members who refused to have or participate in abortions. On Friday, Colombia said it was investigating at least 150 cases of former female FARC fighters who said they were forced to terminate their pregnancies. Many of the women said they were raped, BBC News reported.
Spain's National Police arrested Hector "The Nurse" Arboleda Albeidis Buitrago, a man accused of performing possibly hundreds of forced abortions on female fighters of Colombia's FARC rebel group.
Albeidis Buitrago is accused of participating in most of those cases. At least 50 underage girls were victims of the forced abortions, sometimes at seven or eight months of pregnancy. The abortions were carried out between 1998 and 2000. "We have evidence to prove that forced abortion was a policy of the FARC that was based on forcing a female fighter to abort so as not to lose her as an instrument of war," Colombian Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre said on Friday.
More than 220,000 people have died and 5 million have been internally displaced due to the Colombian conflict since the FARC's founding in 1964. The militant rebel group has been involved in drug-trafficking, kidnapping and other illicit activity to fund its insurgency campaign.
Spain arrests former FARC member 'The Nurse' accused of performing more than 500 forced abortions