The Colombian national parks agency announced the temporary closure of the Tayrona National Park on Tuesday, February 17, citing threats against park staff by armed groups.

Tayrona, located on the country’s northern Caribbean coast, is one of the country’s most visited national parks, attracting as many as 750,000 visitors from around the world each year.

Its closure comes amid a war between two criminal organizations fighting to control territory and strategic drug trafficking routes in the region.

“The National Government announced the temporary closure of Tayrona National Natural Park as a preventive measure to protect the lives and safety of visitors, communities, and officials, and to ensure their security,” read a government statement on Tuesday. 

The dispute began with an operation on February 11 to dismantle “unauthorized constructions in the protected area” in the park. The director of the national parks agency explained that these included houses, bathrooms, and hiking trails built without state permission.

The demolition prompted threats online against park personnel, according to the government. The situation escalated on Monday, February 16, when locals blocked park employees from entering Tayrona. They also reportedly took over government functions, charging tourists for access and allowing people to enter without formal registration. 

“This created a situation that prevents a minimum level of security from being ensured within the protected area,” said authorities.

While the government did not specify who it believes to be behind the actions, the closure comes amid a mounting turf war in the area between two criminal organizations: the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN) and the Gaitanist Army of Colombia (EGC), or Clan del Golfo, designated a terrorist organization by the United States last December. 

“This latest escalation in Tayrona is yet another chapter in this very unfortunate territorial contest that’s been underway now for several years,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, deputy director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group. 

For decades, the ACSN – under different names – has controlled the Sierra Nevada, Tayrona and the city of Santa Marta through a web of powerful family clans. But in recent years, the EGC has been pushing east along the coast from its stronghold in the Gulf of Urabá, trying to displace the ACSN.

The EGC’s long-term goal is to reach the border with Venezuela and surround the key coca-producing region of Catatumbo, says Dickinson. 

“[The Sierra Nevada] is sort of a route on the route to their goal. And… the effect on the civilian population from both sides has been pretty devastating,” said the analyst, who noted a rise in forced confinement, recruitment, and targeted killings.

While tourists tend to be insulated from criminal violence in the area, with armed groups preferring to profit from drugs and prostitution, Tayrona’s closure may signal a shift. 

But local tourism operators tell a different story; they say the closure has nothing to do with the security situation. Instead, members of the community say the problem is that the government, which collects revenue from ticket sales, is not re-investing it in the park. 

“The communities are tired, and the Indigenous people are tired because they don’t receive the money either; it’s taken to Bogotá,” said Luis Eduardo Muñoz, a local leader. 

He explained that members of the community took action to renovate vital tourism infrastructure in the park because the national government failed to invest in it. When the state demolished it, they protested.

“Why do they have to resort to extreme measures and try to close the park if it is necessary for people’s livelihoods?” said Muñoz, who called for dialogue between the government and local leaders.

Although the cause of the closure remains disputed, security analysts nevertheless say it underscores increasing insecurity in the Sierra Nevada region around Tayrona. 

It also marks another setback for President Gustavo Petro’s peace process, with the government actively engaged in negotiations with both the ACSN and the EGC.

Petro said the ACSN had signed a deal after Tayrona’s closure to guarantee civilian safety and suspend attacks on state security forces. 

But the prospect of a peace deal remains uncertain as the group faces a mounting threat from the EGC.

“I think the fundamental question remains the tactical situation on the ground because, of course, they can’t negotiate if they’re under immediate threat from another force,” said Dickinson.

The post Colombia’s popular Tayrona National Park closes over alleged armed group threats appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Bogotá, Colombia – On February 10, the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office launched a worldwide call for victims or witnesses of Jacques Leveugle, a teacher arrested in 2024 in France and accused of sexually assaulting at least 89 minors around the world since 1967.

During a press conference, French prosecutor Étienne Manteaux said that the sexual predator was reported in 2023 by one of his nephews, who discovered a USB drive containing written memoirs, pictures, and other documents related to the abuse of teenagers. 

The French Embassy in Colombia called for witnesses to come forward to identify potential abuse victims in the country, as Leveugle worked as a teacher in Bogotá on two occasions between 1996 and 2023.

The suspect was living in Morocco when the investigation began, but had spent his life moving between Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Algeria, Nigeria, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Colombia, and France. In all of these countries, he allegedly targeted minors while working in educational or social roles.

Authorities revealed that in his “autobiography,” the alleged abuser gave horrendous details about 89 teenagers, between 13 and 17 years old, being manipulated and abused from 1967 to 2022.

“We need Jacques Leveugle’s name to be known because the objective is to reach the victims and encourage them to come forward,” Manteaux confirmed.

He said that 40 of the 89 victims had been identified and that authorities were working to find the rest. 

“Sometimes names are not even mentioned; we are facing a wall in certain situations… This call for witnesses is to allow victims we haven’t been able to identify to come forward,” the prosecutor explained. “Perhaps not all victims are recorded in these documents.”

Manteaux also said that the man, who has been under arrest since 2024 and never officially graduated as an educator, also confessed in his writings to killing two women: his mother and one of his aunts.

The uphill battle to find victims in Colombia

Investigations revealed that Jacques Leveugle spent several years living in and visiting Colombia between 1996 and 2000, and again from 2000 to 2023. 

In an interview with Caracol Radio, the prosecutor confirmed that the sexual predator worked as a French teacher in a shelter for children and teenagers in the capital city, Bogotá.

“It’s hard to reach victims outside France; that’s why we have made a special invitation to Colombian victims. We need them and their experiences to understand what this man really did,” he said during the call, adding that they decided to take a “traditional” approach due to the difficulty of reaching witnesses.

Authorities are also trying to determine if Leveugle had collaborators and what his “modus operandi” was to ensure that none of the teenagers ever complained or reported the abuse to the police.

Latin America Reports contacted the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office, and they confirmed that the investigation remains active and ongoing in Colombia. They also committed to briefing the media on any significant breakthroughs as they continue to work toward identifying more victims internationally.

The French Embassy in Bogotá has shared the channels established to find Colombian victims:

Anyone with information or seeking to report an incident can communicate via email at sr-grenoble-leveugle@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr or by calling the international hotline at +33 800 005 321.

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Failures in Colombia’s health system were highlighted this week after a young boy died from “completely preventable” complications from blood condition after going off treatment for two months.

Seven-year-old Kevin Acosta was rushed to hospital in Pitalito, Huila, on February 8 after falling off his bike and hitting his head, a situation complicated by his hemophilia.

According to his mother Katherine Pico, the boy required regular injections of clotting factors to prevent the genetic condition that can cause fatal bleeding if untreated.

But due to failings by his health insurer, Nueva EPS, Kevin had missed his regular injections for two months, and on the day of his accident he was denied emergency doses even while bleeding from his head in the hospital in Pitalito.

When the health insurer finally agreed to evacuate Kevin by air ambulance 24 hours later to Bogotá, where clotting factors were available, the blood loss was severe. Kevin died four day later in the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital de la Misericordia in Bogotá.

Since then, Kevin’s death has caused huge indignation in Colombia both among medical experts who claim the death was preventable and critics of the current government’s political intervention in the health system which has left many users worse off.

Get off your bike

Adding to the furor, President Gustavo Petro waded into the debate blaming the mother for allowing Kevin to ride a bicycle.

“A hemophiliac child shouldn’t ride a bike; it’s a matter of prevention. We need to know if the doctor or the health system isn’t providing education, because mothers don’t learn about it, especially given the low educational levels in Colombia,” he said.

His own health minister, Guillermo Jaramillo, added: “Children with hemophilia should be restricted from activities that can generate violent trauma,” he said.

These comments were challenged by patient’s rights groups, who pointed out that cyclists with hemophilia have competed in the Tour de France, and medical experts who emphasized that in recent decades in Colombia prevention has been based on weekly or monthly injections of “clotting factors” which allowed hemophiliacs to lead normal lives.

Many medical experts concurred that children with regular prophylaxis to prevent excess bleeding could, and should, integrate in physical activities.  

“The child died from the accident, but the reason he died was because he didn’t have the medication,” Dr Sergio Robledo, president of the Colombian League of Hemophiliacs, told Blu Radio.  “Prevention in hemophilia means having the drugs, not locking the child up at home.”

“For more than 20 years in Colombia we have not had any [hemophilia] deaths specifically due to a lack of medicine,” Robledo continued.

Chaotic plan

Kevin’s case was symptomatic of problems in Colombia’s health system which had worsened under the Petro government, Denis Silva told the Bogotá Post this week.

Silva, spokesperson for Paciente Colombia, a coalition of 202 patients’ rights groups, said Kevin’s death was “100 per cent avoidable”.

“If Kevin had been given the prophylaxis or given the treatment when he went to the clinic to coagulate his blood, the situation would have been different”.

Kevin’s mother had been asking Nueva EPS for the life-saving medicines since December, he said, but they were never delivered because the EPS had “failed to pay the clinic” that administered the drug in Pitalito.

Blame for these errors should bounce back to the Petro government, said Silva. State entities had forcibly intervened in Nueva EPS in 2024, claiming fraud in the huge health insurer, and were thereafter legally responsible for managing the entity that covered 11 million Colombians.

Interventions in EPS insurers was not unusual in Colombia, he said. Previous governments had done the same to avoid a crisis for patients.

But were timely actions to “administrate, improve and, where necessary, rescue” the health insurers, though in some cases they were shuttered and patients moved to other companies. Petro’s current takeovers were more chaotic and linked to political overhaul of the health system, he said.

Health system in crisis

This agenda was heavily criticized in an opinion article ‘How Politics Destroyed Colombia’s Model Healthcare System’, by Colombian-based journalist Luke Taylor and published in the prestigious British Medical Journal in January.

Referring to President Petro’s “bungled reforms”, the story claimed that maternity wards and neonatal units were shutting their doors, emergency departments becoming overwhelmed, and training programs for specialist doctors being shut down.

It also quoted the Colombian president as stating that health companies were being “run by crooks”, even as the his government’s interventions triggered a slew of complaints by patients suddenly finding their health care a lot worse.

For patients with chronic ailments reliant on monthly checkups and regular medical supply, the decline was becoming an existential threat, said Colombia’s ombudsman, Iris Marín, this week.

Kevin Acosta was “yet another victim of the failures in the availability and access to medicines that thousands of Colombians face today, in order to access timely treatments that are crucial for their health”.

According to documents released by Nueva EPS, Pico had tried to transfer her son’s care from Huila to Santander department, then switched back to Huila, suggesting a paperwork logjam had delayed the treatment. In another statement, it denied suspending the prophylaxis.

Need for treatment

This was “a big lie” said Pico, talking to Semana, since even before the administrative switch the local clinic treating Kevin had told her in early January that Nueva EPS had ended its contract. Without payments from the EPS, the clinic was forced to suspend treatment.

“By January we had no medication, no appointments, nothing,” said Pico.

Her position was supported by the fact that, across the country, other chronic or rare disease sufferers – including hemophiliac suffers in Pico’s same family – were reporting the same shortages, in many cases linked to contractual or payment problems with health suppliers. 

ACHOP, the Colombian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, warned in a public communication that children and adolescents “were not receiving in a timely and continuous manner the essential medicines to preserve their lives in conditions of dignity”.

These shortages fell mostly on patients with the state-intervened Nueva EPS, confirmed hemophilia specialist Dr Jorge Peña, who said he regularly treated dozens of children with the condition.

Talking to Caracol Radio, Dr Peña said that children with other insurers were receiving their prophylaxis on time and were “happy, free from bleeding, and going to school as usual”.

“In comparison Nueva EPS patients are not getting the medicines, and I see them every day with bleeding. They can’t go to school.”

Leaked records

Meanwhile attempts by the government and President Petro to push back on Pico even while grieving her son’s death caused condemnation across the political spectrum, particularly since the state had taken over Nueva EPS.

“The responsibility is clear: when the state intervenes and controls, it is held accountable,” said Senator Jorge Robledo on X.

“The healthcare system already had problems, but under this government it’s worse. And meanwhile, more and more Colombians are suffering from illnesses that medicine knows how to treat.”

More criticism piled on President Petro after he leaked details from the Kevin Acosta’s medical records during a speech in La Guajira. Patient spokesperson Denis Silva called on the government to respect patient confidentiality

“These are confidential in Colombia,” said Silva. “By law the EPS insurer should guard the medical records, and no-one should access them without permission from the family”.

The leaks came even as the state agency overseeing the system, the Superintendency of Health (also known as Supersalud), announced an investigation into the Kevin’s care, including looking at “administrative barriers and the delivery of medication by Nueva EPS and the service provider”. This audit should clarify differences in accounts from the family and Nueva EPS.

But even with results pending, President Petro again doubled down in a speech claiming the family was primarily responsible for Kevin’s health outcomes.

“It’s the family that first of all cares for its children,” he said, “Not everything is the responsibility of the state, because the state can’t respond to everything, otherwise we lose our liberty”.  

Colombians living with hemophilia might want those liberties to include the right to life-saving drugs – and to ride a bike.

The post Young hemophilia patient dies after delay in life-saving medicines appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

2026 has started off unusually wet, with downpours in Bogotá and floods elsewhere in Colombia. What’s going on and how can you help?

While this is meant to be the dry season for most of Colombia, it’s instead been raining heavily. Vast swathes of the Caribbean region have flooded, and in Bogotá, it’s led to collapses in the traffic systems. That’s led to an emergency declaration by the president and frantic relief efforts (links at article end).

Colombian president Gustavo Petro has declared a state of emergency yet again to address the situation in the northern department of Córdoba and elsewhere. While the emergency measures were declared for Córdoba, this was later extended to 22 departments, underlining the severity of the situation.

Within the capital, flash floods have swamped roads and forced traffic to grind to a halt as well as collapsing roofs and flooding buildings. Luckily, Bogotá has so far escaped the levels of damage seen elsewhere in the nation.

Barrios such as Nicolás de Federman have been hit by hailstorms heavy enough to resemble a blizzard, leaving them carpeted in white as though snowed in while the autopista norte has been forced to close as it resembles a swamp.

One silver lining to the rainclouds is that the reservoirs will be nice and full, alleviating fears that Bogotá will be forced to return to water rationing, as happened in 2024. That will be little comfort to many who have lost everything in the floods.

Why is it raining so much?

Colombia’s weather monitors, IDEAM, have explained that there are four main factors: the Madden and Julian wave; high Amazonian humidity; a lack of winds to move that humidity and la Niña-esque conditions.

All put together, these four factors combine to make a perfect storm and unseasonably high January rainfall levels. That’s continued into February and with March and April around the corner there is little relief in sight.

That’s led to half the country being put on alert for potential floods and high precipitation, which leads to all sorts of other trouble such as landslides. Colombia’s disaster relief agency UNGRD is underprepared currently, having endured corruption scandals recently.  

This is meant to be the dry season, too. Bogotá in particular is meant to receive heavy rain October-December and April, not January and February. In fact, these months are normally characterised by blazing sunshine, clear skies and hot temperatures.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that we’re supposed to be heading into an El Niño cycle, meaning dry weather and lower rainfall than expected. Instead, we’ve had the precise opposite so far. While Colombia is the world’s rainiest country, it’s not meant to fall in January and February, at least not in the north.

Floods in the Caribbean

The rains have been annoying and disruptive in Bogotá, but other parts of the country have faced genuine devastation. First among those is the department of Córdoba, which has suffered widespread floods. However, over half the country has been affected.

The capital of Córdoba, Montería, is the worst hit major city in the country, with thousands of people evacuated in the city and surrounds. Over a quarter of a million people have been directly affected by the rains nationally.

Sadly, politics have come into play here too, with Petro clashing with regional governor Erasmo Zuleta over the management of the department. The pair have had a lot of differences over the years. He also said he was initially unable to land in Córdoba due to the risk of an attack.

More reasonable are Petro’s claims that the situation has been exacerbated by water management systems such as reservoirs. These have diverted normal water flows and critically diminished the region’s ability to handle pressure from unusual weather patterns. Zuleta’s response is that the national government oversees the Urrá hydro plant.

The worst affected regions are on the Caribbean coast, with Uraba Antioqueño, La Guajira and Sucre joining Córdoba, but the Amazon and Pacific regions have also seen unusually high rainfall for the start of the year.

There has been flooding in Medellín, as well as the risk of landslides in hillside comunas, while coastal cities such as Cartagena have had heavy downpours and storms, affecting much-needed tourism income in high season as beaches close.

Even when the rains stop, the long term effects will take years to overcome. Already, bad actors are starting to take advantage of the situation, with desperate houseowners paying through the nose for boaters to rescue their belongings before thieves arrive.

Fields that are now underwater will take an age to fully drain and even longer to recover from the damage currently being wrought upon them. Thousands upon thousands of hectares of farmland will be unusable for the near future.

With what looks like a fraught year ahead for Colombia, this is an unwanted extra pressure to deal with and exposes the fragility of infrastructure in the face of increased climate change pressure. Whoever wins the next election, investment will be needed to avoid similar problems going forward. 

The Cruz Roja Colombiana are taking donations of clothes and building materials at their Salitre centre (Av.68 #68b-31), and you can donate money directly on this link. The local government in Bogotá is also organising donation drives on this link.

The post Rain, rain, go away appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Judges ordered the recapture this week of a Violeta Arango Ramírez, a prime suspect in the 2017 bombing of Bogotá’s Andino shopping mall, after she lost her legal protections as an ELN peace manager.

The Colombian attorney general’s office requested that Arango, thought to be active in the ranks of the ELN guerrillas, “be found immediately to comply with an order for prison detention” based on accusations she was a key participant in the attack that left three dead and 10 more injured.

Arango, a sociologist, was previously arrested in 2022, but then released from prison to assume the role of a gestora de paz (‘peace manager’) during peace talks between the ELN and the the Petro government.

The controversial release was criticised at the time by survivors and families of victims of the Andino attack as Arango remained a key suspect. By being nominated as a gestora de paz, Arango was allowed both her freedom and temporary avoidance of homicide and terrorism charges while whe was “collaborating with the peace process”.  

This week’s recapture order followed breakdowns in government talks with the ELN with the Justice Department officially removing many combatants’ designations as peace managers. The news gave a glimmer of hope for justice after nine years of uncertainty as to who was behind the attack.

Arango herself has always denied any involvement in the attack, pointing to a plot from within the state prosecutors’ office to frame left-wing activists during the political fallout from the 2016 FARC peace deal.

Pamphlet bombs

The Andino attack unfolded during the evening of Saturday, June 17, 2017, inside the crowded women’s restroom of the busy shopping mall at a peak hour. It was the eve of Father’s Day.

A bomb placed in a toilet cubicle exploded killing one French and two Colombian citizens and maimed at least eight more women in or around the restroom.

Police investigators quickly blamed the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo or MRP, a left-wing group that had evolved in Bogotá’s public universities and was dedicated to mediatic events such as dangling flags from buildings and letting off weak explosives that launched political leaflets into the air.

Over the space of two years the MRP had targeted public spaces outside tax offices, health insurers and banks with messages such as: “Today in Colombia the peace process is a business plan”, and “Health in Colombia is a problem of democracy”.

In the months following the attack, a dozen suspects accused of being linked to the MRP were rounded up, detained over many months, then tried and released after none of the evidence against them could be proven in court.

Meanwhile an alternative theory emerged: that the Andino bombing was part of a right-wing plot carried out to destabilise the then-Santos government’s closeness to left-wing guerrilla groups in the wake of the historic 2016 peace process with the FARC, previously Colombia’s most powerful armed group.

False positives

In this narrative, the MRP, with its history of small-scale attacks and rumoured links to the larger ELN guerrilla group, made a convenient scape-goat.

Investigators claimed to have found similarities between the Andino bomb and the pamphlet explosives, but an analysis by news website Las2Orillas at the time pointed out that the attorney general’s office at the time “had a long history of fabricating evidence” to bring down left-wing political targets, partly as a distraction from their own implications in high profile corruption cases.

Violeta Arango, an activist with links to left-wing causes, found herself officially accused of being an MRP leader and coordinator with the much larger ELN guerrilla group.

She avoided capture and publicy declared herself the victim of a “falso positivo”, or false positive, referring to the practice by the Colombian military of murdering civilians and disguising their bodies as guerrilla combatants.

“This legal persecution I am suffering, along with my family who are being harassed and abused, is nothing more than a setup by the police and the attorney general’s office,” she wrote in an open letter, before fleeing Bogotá.

What happened next is subject to speculation. According to Arango herself, she escaped into the arms of the ELN (literally, as she became the romantic partner of a senior commander) fearing for her life in the face of “political persecution”.  

But her smooth transition into the ELN guerrilla’s Darío Ramírez Castro Front – active in the conflict zone of Sur de Bolívar – also seemed to vindicate the prosecution’s narrative of her links to urban terrorism.

Alias ‘Talibán’

Meanwhile in Bogotá, 10 other people were detained as suspected MRP members linked to the attack.

After searches of their homes, some were accused of carrying false IDs, carrying weapons, and, in some cases, having printed plans of the Andino shopping centre showing entrances and exits, and notes which appeared to show preparations for the bombing, and USB sticks with messages from the MRP.

But in many cases the police arrests and searches were themselves found to be illegal and without due process which, added to the flimsy evidence presented in court, lead to the the cases falling apart under legal scrutiny.

Some of these investigations were later examined in a documentary called Andino File: A Judicial Set-up? produced by journalism collective La Liga Contra el Silencio. One of the main accused, Iván Ramírez, described how the police produced CCTV used to identify him “scoping out the Andino”. This “evidence” later turned out to be video of a regular mall worker with a similar look.

In another twist, Ramírez described how the police themselves invented the aliases to which the suspects were presented as a “terrorist cell” to the media; for example, ‘El Calvo’, ‘Japo’, ‘Aleja’ and, in the case of the bearded sociologist, ‘Talibán’. The scary name stuck and Ramírez was thereafter referred to by Colombia media as ‘alias Talíban’.

He was also constantly described by prosecutors as the “explosives expert” of the MRP cell, a charge he consistently denied.

Ramírez was released from custody in 2021 after spending four years in pre-trial detention, during which time every case against him collapsed. But even after his release he continued to be “linked to the investigation”.

Peace managing

Then in June 2022, Violeta Arango, now in the ELN, was captured in the Sur de Bolívar in the same military operation that killed her partner, known as Pirry.

According to a post on X by the then minister of defence, Diego Molano, alias Pirry was “one of the top ELN commanders responsible for attacks on the civilian population, forced recruitment, and terrorism”.  

Arango was jailed for her guerrilla links even while the process continued against her for the Andino bombing.

That panorama changed when Petro Gustavo took the presidency in August 2022; with peace talks in the air, and after a visit from a Cuban and Norwegian delegation to her jail, Arango was released to her gestora de paz role in November that year. She resurfaced a month later in Caracas, Venezuela, as part of the ELN talks with the Petro government.

This appearance caused anger among the Andino victims. Pilar Molano, who lost a leg in the explosion, told Vorágine magazine that “it’s insane that they let her out and put her in the peace negotiations with the ELN”.

Six years after the Andino attack, in April 2023, the prosecutor’s office again filed charges against Arango based on evidence that prior to the bombing she had downloaded plans of the shopping mall from the Internet.

Cell structures

The indictment formally accused Arango of the “detailed planning” of the bomb attack. It further alleged that Arango was a senior member of the MRP “responible for attracting new members to the criminal organization in Bogotá and apparently participated in at least 21 terrorist attacks against EPS headquarters, public transport and infrastructure”.

With this week’s recapture order the case can move ahead – assuming she can be found.

Any trial could shed light on the who and why of the Andino bombing, and also the complex backstory of ‘Violeta’. But, given the shambolic history of the judicial process, it could also put the investigation back to square one.

In interviews in the intervening years leaders of MRP have repeatedly denied their groups involvement, as well as denying any links to the ELN, or any connections to the original suspects.

But the truth might be hard to find even within the two armed groups; both the ELN and the MRP are known to work in cell structures which plan autonomous actions often without the co-members or leaders aware.

Such was the case with the devastating car bomb that killed 20 young police recruits in Bogotá in 2019, initially denied by the ELN – their leadership claimed not to know of the plot – but eventually taking responsibility.

An unusual element of the Andino bombing is that no armed group or political movement has ever taken responsibility. And so far the prosecutors have not only failed to pin the attack on the MRP, but also ignored alternative lines of investigations such as a false flag operation by paramilitary or right-wing groups.

Lawyer for the Andino victims and survivors Franciso Bernate, said this week that “on behalf of the 11 female victims we hope Violeta is found so she can respond to these grave accusations”.

The post Is justice in sight for the Andino mall bombing victims? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

It’s no secret that Colombia’s startup ecosystem is booming. Over the past few years, the country has emerged as one of the leading business hubs in Latin America. 

But where do women fit into the picture? According to KPMG’s latest annual tech report, one in five Colombian founders is a woman. The good news is that there’s a nationwide drive to close the gender gap in leadership, and the numbers are reflecting that: the number of women occupying C-suite roles jumped to 40% in 2025. 

As momentum continues to move forward in Colombian entrepreneurship and innovation, here are the 2026 female tech leaders to watch.

Isabella Fernandez Abraham, Chief Revenue Officer at MiDi

Isabella is leading the charge to empower remote workers to gain access to U.S. financial infrastructure. In fact, Midi is the only fintech in Colombia to do so, removing payroll barriers for Colombian-based freelancers. With Colombia ranking among the world’s most prominent leaders for outsourcing talent, Midi’s offering is crucial. Moreover, the startup recently raised $10 million in a funding round, paving the way for accelerated growth.

And Isabella has helped people take leaps and bounds in other ways, too. In 2013, she founded Kangoo Jumps Colombia, where she opened and managed three boutiques in Bogota. 

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Florence French, Co-founder and COO, Leal 360

Florence is at the helm of transforming customer engagement across Latin America’s retail landscape. Founded in 2015, Leal 360 now boasts over seven million users and has established partnerships with one thousand brands across eight countries. Leal’s AI software helps businesses access and action powerful customer insights for optimal lifetime value. 

In 2025, Leal 360 was recognized by Gartner’s Capterra for being the ‘best ease of use’ CRM platform. This is a testament to Florence and her team’s dedication to making customer engagement easier and smarter. 

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Valentina Valencia, CEO of Vaas

Having seen multiple sides of private debt, and how convoluted the process can be, Valentina set out to rectify the situation, which led to the founding of Vaas. At just 25 years old, she raised $5 million in seed funding and last year made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. 

At Vaas, Valentina is helping lead the charge to revolutionize financial infrastructure so it can keep pace with private credit growth. She comes with more than eight years of fintech experience in Latin America, which includes overseeing the financing of 250,000 devices and managing $150 million across top-tier fintechs. 

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Zaira Hurtado, Founder of Daxus LATAM

Zaira’s passion for data inspired her to make analytics accessible to everyone—hence, she brought Daxus LATAM to life. Data knowledge has fast become a core skill that’s redefining the future of the workplace. In the span of just three years, Zaira now has 30,000 alumni who have built their knowledge on data and analysis principles via the Daxus learning platform. 

She’s also a founding member and principal CEO of Zakidata, helping individuals translate data into powerfully actionable insights. Throughout her career, Zaira has impacted over a million minds to build their data and analytics capabilities. 

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Gabriela Tafur, CEO of Idilio TV

From law to pageantry to authoring a book to becoming a well-known national TV host, Gabriela’s journey to becoming a tech founder is uniquely impressive. She’s now shifted her focus to behind the camera as the founder and CEO of Idilio TV, Colombia’s first vertical screening platform. 

Upon her return to Colombia after completing her MBA at Stanford University, Gabriela quickly realized a massive yet untapped opportunity in Latin America: streaming short-form novelas. All around her, people were streaming Spanish-dubbed Asian micro-dramas. The demand was there, but the natively Spanish supply wasn’t. At Idilio TV, Garbiela and her team are on a mission to create original and entertaining micro-dramas—all in Spanish, and all available from the comfort of your smartphone. 

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Valentina Agudelo, Founder and CEO at Salva Health

Valentina’s mission is clear: democratize the early detection of breast cancer. One of the world’s deadliest diseases, breast cancer accounts for 27% of cancer cases in Latin America. However, early-stage detection remains elusive for the majority of individuals. 

Valentina and the team at Salva Health are changing that with their cutting-edge technology, Julieta, which uses electrical bioimpedance technology to assess how breast tissue responds to small, safe, and painless currents.

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Manuela Gutierrez, Project Director at 360 Health Data

Manuela has forged a strong career, helping international entrepreneurs create and refine their offerings through her expertise in visual design and UI/UX. Now, she’s running projects at Source Meridian, a Medellin-based healthcare software innovator, and 360 Health Data, a startup transforming medical knowledge in Latin America. Manuela’s leadership at the two companies not only enables her to propel tech innovation in Colombia but also directly impacts local communities to access better health opportunities. 

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Estefania Molina Ulgar, General Council, Addi

Legal frameworks matter just as much as technical ones in startups, and Estefania has built and scaled Addi’s legal and compliance function from the ground up. With 15 years of experience, she’s no stranger to the legal intricacies of fintech and the financial world. Her background includes working in the Colombian Securities Exchange and the Colombian Financial Regulator.

Estefania has guided Addi, one of Colombia’s biggest payment apps, through complex equity raises, debt transactions, and the process of becoming a regulated financial institution. 

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Daniela Lopera Hernández, Legal Director at VaxThera

Daniela spent almost a decade managing the legal side of SURA before she moved to VaxThera, a leading biotechnology provider in Colombia. Since joining the company, Daniela has established an important role in ensuring VaxThera’s innovations can reach the public.

Just last year, VaxThera announced a partnership with the Colombian Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Health to strengthen health sovereignty across the nation. VaxThera also announced its partnership with Seguros SURA to launch the region’s largest HPV program in the bid to prevent cervical cancer. 

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Daniela Restrepo, Principal at Publicize

Daniela leads strategic initiatives at Publicize, a global PR firm serving technology startups and Fortune 1000 enterprises from its hubs in Medellin and Barcelona. As a graduate of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Social Communications and PR, she leverages her academic background and industry expertise to position clients at the forefront of the media landscape.

Beyond her executive role, Daniela is a driving force in the ecosystem, actively mentoring talent at both the Founder Institute, Universities and top tech events. Her industry authority is further recognized through her contributions to Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes, her speaking engagements at conferences like TechBeach, and her recent role as a Judge for Colombia’s National Digital Journalism Award.

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Paula Andrea Ruiz, Head of Culture at Somos Internet

Innovation needs talent to thrive, and Paula is ensuring this need is constantly met so Somos Internet can continue to scale its software and services in more than 50,000 Colombian households. 

Late last year, Somos Internet raised $18 million in Series A funding, a significant chunk of which will go to strengthening the company’s engineering and operations teams. As  the head of culture and recruitment, Paula has a major role to play in ensuring talent continues to be nurtured and innovation propelled. 

Whether founders, CEO, or heads of departments, Colombian women have carved a firm place in the country’s tech landscape. As 2026 unfolds, keep a pulse on these powerhouses and how they’re helping amplify innovation opportunities for women and men alike. 

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Laura María Hernández Ospina, Project Manager at Source Meridian

Laura has dedicated the past 11 years to Source Meridian, evolving from an international business background into a specialized leader in healthcare technology. With a comprehensive 360° view of the software lifecycle, she currently directs cross-functional teams focused on Security and Compliance, successfully guiding clients through rigorous SOC 2, HITRUST, and HIPAA certifications for the U.S. market.

Driven by a spirit of continuous learning and a passion for mentorship, Laura views leadership through a human-centric lens. She is committed to empowering her colleagues to grow from scratch, fostering a collaborative culture where teams succeed united as “galaxies” rather than individual stars, ensuring that technical excellence is always matched by collective professional growth.

The post 10 Female Tech Leaders in Colombia to Watch in 2026 appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Stark figures show expansion of fighting groups under ‘Paz Total’.

Colombia’s illegal armed groups have grown by 84 per cent during the three years of the Petro government’s Paz Total plan, thinktank Fundacion Ideas para la Paz (FIP) announced last week.

The alarming data showed the country’s main guerrilla factions and organised crime gangs totalled 27,000 active members at the end of 2025, adding 5,000 new recruits in just 12 months.

And humanitarian crises associated with the expansion of illicit economies, such as combats, displacements or confinement of communities, attacks on social leaders and extortion were also on the rise.

According to Gerson Arias, co-author of FIP’s El Deterioro de la Seguridad Marca el Inicio de 2026 (Deteriorating Security Marks the Start of 2026), the endless peace talks played out under President Petro’s expansive Paz Total policy had only incentivised armed groups to grow in terms of fighters, weapons and territory.

“Paz Total was based on a state ceasefire – but without any conditions put on the groups, such as ceasing recruitment, including child recruitment, or ending expansion,” he told The Bogotá Post.

“As such, the policy gave a gigantic strategic advantage to the armed groups to strengthen their fighting forces.”

Big surge

The biggest surge was in the organised crime group Clan de Golfo, up by 30 per cent to 9,840 active agents, reported FIP (see chart below).

Next in terms of size was the ELN, the guerrilla group dominating the eastern borderlands of Colombia, with 6,810 members, an increase of 9 per cent.

Dissident FARC groups also grew, some by almost a quarter, such as CNEB (Coordinadora Nacional Ejercito Bolivariano) which despite drawn-out peace talks with the Petro government – and numerous plans for a disarmament – ended the year 25 per cent bigger than started, now numbering 2,089.

And these were probably underestimates, said Arias. The FIP figures were based on military and intelligence data collected annually since 2002,and generally considered to be lower than the actual numbers.

“We tend to undermeasure illegal activity. It’s impossible to say with precision, but we would say the real data could be 20% or 30% higher,” he concluded.

Unlucky 13

These numbers included both armed fighters – often uniformed and carrying heavy weaponry – and support members tasked with infiltrating civilian communities to “ensure compliance”, often carrying pistols. Armed groups were increasingly deploying explosives by drones.

According to the FIP report, none of the negotiation processes had managed to curb their recruitment capacity.

Territorial expansion had also triggered disputes over illegal gold mining, coca, and trafficking routes. The FIP report identified 13 zones where two or more groups were facing off, more than twice the number of disputed territories that Petro inherited from the Duque government in 2022.

Top in terms of combat last year were Catatumbo in Norte de Santander, and areas of Guaviare, Cauca, Nariño, Valle and Arauca (see map).

But even departments considered peaceful in recent years, such as Tolima and Huila, were being drawn back into the fray, said Arias.

This rise in conflict brought a host of humanitarian impacts. Armed groups strictly controlled their zones, at times displacing or confining populations, but also imposing daily controls such as travel permissions and ID cards.

Last year, according to UN figures quoted by FIP, one million mostly rural Colombians were affected by armed group controls, tripling the number recorded in 2024.

Civilians in the crosshairs

And according to Arias, the government had itself increased the risks to civilians by involving them as third parties in the peace talks while failing in any robust plan to pacify the zone.

“Petro reached partial agreements with the groups – even while they were still armed, still controlling, extorting, confining and pressuring civilian communities. There was no cost to the armed groups,” said the researcher.

Part of the problem was that Paz Total had initially failed to link to any coherent military strategy that could had protected civilian communities. This had put civic leaders “in the crosshairs of armed groups” as one side accused them of siding with the other.  

The statement is backed by a graph showing a year-on increase since 2022 in attacks both between armed groups, and against civilians and state forces. Last year there were 150 attacks on civilian targets.

In fact, by Arias’s estimate Colombia had gone back to 2011 in terms of the numbers of non-state armed actors – 27,000 – potentially in conflict.

That compared to a recent low of 12,800 combatants in 2018, two years after former president Santos signed the 2016 peace deal with the FARC guerrillas.

From bad to worse

In fact, to explain the current situation, Arias pointed to failures in the both the current administration and the previous right-wing government under Ivan Duque.

Taking over in 2018, Duque rolled back many of the agreements made with the FARC sending many ex-combatants back to the bush along with a wave of new combatants.

But then left-leaning Gustavo Petro, taking over in 2022, surprised even his own military advisers by declaring a unilateral ceasefire. This was the opening salvo of the Paz Total policy which announced negotiations with armed groups and criminal gangs on multiple fronts – in some cases even without informing them.

Petro’s plan was conceived “with good intentions”, said Arias, but had put misplaced trust in armed groups busy enriching themselves by illegal activities and with little incentive to demobilize.

By comparison, during the 2013-16 process with the FARC, the military forces under Santos had continued operations against the guerrilla up until the final signing: “This pressure incentivised the FARC to take serious decisions in terms of the peace process,” he said.

Too little, too late

The failings of Paz Total were apparent on the ground in the first few months of inception in 2022, with community organisations raising the alarm over the increased fighting between groups.

It took until late 2024 for the state military to step up offensive actions in areas such as Cauca, with battles against the dissident FARC factions of Ivan Mordisco. Then, in early 2025, the Catatumbo region of Norte de Santander caught fire with fierce combat between the ELN and FARC 33, leading to the largest humanitarian crisis in Colombia’s recent history.

But it took until August last year for President Petro himself to acknowledge that the policy had “not achieved peace”.

During 2025 military actions increased by 30 per cent, but with reduced state forces – many experienced soldiers and commanders had left – facing stronger armed groups, said Arias.

“The offensive came slowly and without an analysis of what was required to combat the strengthened armed groups.”

“Years of intelligence capacity was lost, along with military presence and air deployment. This explains why – despite the offensives – there are few concrete improvements for many communities.”

For soldiers on the ground, the job got harder under Paz Total with a strengthened enemy and less military intelligence to rely on. According to President Petro’s own presentation to the Trump Whitehouse early this month, 360 state forces have been killed “in the fight against drug trafficking” in the last three years, with 1,680 wounded.

But even away from the front line, Paz Total was not up to the monumental task of negotiating peace with multiple armed groups given that most governments had failed to pacify even one.

At whatever cost

“Paz Total never evaluated the institutional capacity required. It’s good to say: ‘we have to negotiate with everyone’. But that requires a method,” said Arias.

The government often pushed talks ahead even without any legal framework that would allow, constitutionally, the state to make peace with certain criminal gangs, or groups of recycled combatants that had previously demobilised. This created a credibility gap which continued to undermine the peace initiative.

“Even today, no group has taken a serious position on disarming or demobilisation or reducing violence,” said Arias.

FIP also questioned the government’s own seriousness in finalizing any negotiations, terming Paz Total an “electoral peace”; endless rounds of talks through the upcoming election period.  

It’s a strategy Arias condemned: “This government seems intent on continuing the process at whatever costs and put the burden of resolution on the next government. This is politically irresponsible.”

Lack of concrete results could also taint future processes, he said.

“The poor results have thrown doubt on the idea that political solutions to conflict is the best route, which is very worrying, and eventually exposes communities to more risk.”

His main message – and the key finding of the FIP report – was that ending conflict in Colombia required more than goodwill, he told The Bogotá Post.

“It’s incoherent to talk of ‘peace or security’. We need to talk of ‘peace and security’. Without that, we’ve gone backwards.”

The post Peace plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank. appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026 is nearly here, and is a great way to find out more about Latin music alongside serious international superstars

Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026 is only a few weeks away now, with artists including Tyler, the Creator and Sabrina Carpenter topping a typically star-studded bill on the 20th-22nd of March. Having cemented its place in the centre of Bogotá, the event continues to be the biggest draw in town.

This year, it’s a three-day event. That seems like a good move, concentrating quality into a long weekend rather than stretching things over four days. Adult tickets start at COP$523,000 for a single day and are available online via Ticketmaster here. 

Full fest regular passes are at COP$1,413,000 and Sat-Sun at COP$939,000. VIP rates are significantly higher, with a full 3 day pass clocking in at COP$2,899,000. Prices will increase in the coming weeks.

Cultural tourism is now a heavyweight part of the sector and is rapidly diversifying away from purely traditional events like Barranquilla Carnival. That means a lot more travellers timing trips to coincide with festivals like Estéreo Picnic.

It’s easy to see why. Not only do you get a stellar international lineup, but also a peek at the flow of a Latin crowd. With prices competitive compared to North America and Europe, it’s a good way to see international stars along with your holiday.

What is Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá like?

In a word: fantastic. Since the move back to the heart of the city, everything now flows pretty much seamlessly. Considering the size of the event, this is quite an achievement. It’s a cashless wristband affair, meaning you don’t have to worry about carrying too much cash.

There’s two big stages as well as a frequently interesting third stage set behind the second stage, often home to some of the more quirky and/or local acts. Hometown hip-hoppers La Etnnia’s set in 2024 was emblematic of that.

Of course, you’ll find getting to the front tricky with thousands of people in front of you, but there’s no VIP barriers to contend with and good views of most stages across the site. Bands are timed to avoid clashes, so you should be able to catch everyone on your list, even if from far away and there’s little dead time to contend with.

Food and drink is reasonably priced: you won’t be able to find a corrientazo bargain, but neither is it airport pricing. There’s a wide selection of local chains and some internationals with all tastes catered for, usually including fully vegan stands. The park’s normal drinking water fountains keep running through the festival too, with long lines.

If you’re getting tired after hours in a field, there are lots of seated spaces or grass to lie on, as well as tents in which to keep warm or shelter from rain. If you find yourself between bands, there’s a wide selection of shops and stalls to peruse. If things are really going south, there are dedicated chill-out spots and medical support.

Who’s headlining Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026 in Bogotá?

Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026 will be starting off front foot forward, with Tyler, The Creator headlining Friday night. Kiwi popster Lorde is the undercard here, with Turnstile bound to attract a big audience, given how much of a rock city Bogotá is.

On Saturday night, traditionally the biggest party of the weekend, the festival is going back to a tried and trusted favourite: The Killers. They’ve played Colombia a half dozen times over the past decade, so this isn’t breaking new ground, but will be popular.

There’s plenty of international quality down the bill on the middle day too, with Swedish House Mafia likely to go down an absolute storm, The Whitest Boy Alive popular and Tom Morello guaranteed to make a political statement.

For the final night, there’s a mix of contemporary talent and big name legends. Sabrina Carpenter ticks the first box, while Skrillex, Deftones and Interpol tick the latter. Scottish Britpop survivors Travis are timing things perfectly for a rendition of Why Does It Always Rain On Me.

Who else should I check out at Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026?

So, there’s plenty of well-known names you’ll recognise from international charts, but what about the local and Latin talent? After all, you can catch many of the big names around the world, but this might be your only chance to check out local talent.

These bands are usually scheduled earlier in the day, giving you the perfect excuse to rock up early and miss the queues for peaktime entrance around 6pm. Sadly, the local scene isn’t always the best attended, meaning that it’ll be easy to get up nice and close for most of these bands.

Nicolás y los Fumadores are as classic rolo rockcito as they come and command a strong following in the capital. 80s-infused Pirineos en Llamas are popping over from Medellín. Up-and-coming popster Manú is touring last year’s album, while Zarigüeya mix pop with carranga rhythms.

Viral Mexican sensation Macario Martínez is a young version of the classic Latin pop-rock crooners of yesteryear.  From Quito is Machaka, highlighting Ecuadorian and wider Latin culture via tropipop. Spain is represented by Guitarricadelafuente and Judeline.

Cult kitsch octogenarian Peruvian legend La Tigresa Del Oriente plays the cabaret tent. It’s hard to describe precisely what she’s like, as she ploughs her own furrow, but this will be packed and spectacular. FEP fixture La Ramona will also play there. DJs such as Briela Veneno, Babath and Silvia Ponce are also onsite for electronica fans.

The post Why You Should Check Out Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026 in Bogotá appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Inside the Salón del Nunca Más (Hall of Never Again), where the faces of victims of Colombia’s half-century-long internal conflict stare silently from their pictures hung along the walls, former combatants, members of the security forces, and survivors of the armed conflict sat together on February 2 to talk. 

This wasn’t a hollow symbolic gesture, nor a staged act of reconciliation. It was something far more fragile, and far more real: an uncomfortable, human exercise in restorative justice.

The meeting in the hall took place in Granada, a municipality that endured some of the worst violence of Colombia’s long-running conflict. Between 1980 and the mid-2000’s, this corner of eastern Antioquia was caught between the crossfire of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and state forces. 

The result was mass displacement and violence. An estimated 90% of rural residents and 70% of the urban population were forced from their homes, nearly 3,000 people were disappeared, 460 were victims of selective killings, and dozens of kidnappings and sexual assaults left a community deeply fractured.

Now, ASOVIDA, the local victims’ association, together with representatives from Comunidades Restaurativas, a program supported by Prison Fellowship Colombia, brought together victims of the conflict, former combatants from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and former members of Colombia’s security forces appearing before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). 

While participants meet regularly throughout the process, the February 2 gathering marked the culmination of the process and took the form of a symbolic celebration.

“This place is sacred”

The gathering opened with words from Gloria Ramírez, a community leader, member of ASOVIDA, and a victim of forced displacement. She reminded those present that this was no ordinary meeting hall.

“This place is sacred,” she said. “We are not here to victimize ourselves again. We are here to find tools to move forward.”

In Granada, memory has become a form of resistance. For more than 18 years, victims groups have worked to transform grief into collective action, often under threat, often in silence. Gloria admitted that for a long time, the idea of sitting across from those who caused the harm felt impossible.

“We were terrified of getting close to them,” she said. “But we understood that without truth, there is no path forward.”

That insistence on truth echoed throughout the encounter. For the victims, reconciliation does not mean forgetting, nor abandoning the most painful questions: what happened, why it happened, and where the bodies of the disappeared are located.

Walking through the hall makes that tension visible. Archival photographs show war-battered streets and faces of victims and their loved ones frozen in grief. Yet alongside them are images of community members rebuilding together, evidence of resilience layered on top of loss.

The long road to restorative justice

The Comunidades Restaurativas program, or “Communities of Reconciliation,” did not arrive in Granada to open arms. It emerged from a recognition that traditional justice mechanisms often fail to fully address victims’ needs, that legal rulings alone do not always translate into a sense of reparation or closure.

Its early attempts to convene dialogue sessions and community meetings between victims and former perpetrators were met with rejection. The community was not ready to receive their victimizers. Trust had to be built slowly, conversation by conversation.

A turning point came on September 23, 2017, when former FARC members publicly asked for forgiveness inside the town’s church, led by demobilized guerrilla commander José Lisandro Lascarro, known by the nome de guerra “Pastor Alape”. Granada was later declared a “Territory of Peace,” and the Day of Forgiveness and Reconciliation was formally established.

Since then, between 50 and 60 former guerrillas, paramilitaries, and ex-members of the security forces, have taken part in symbolic acts of victim reparation. 

Many have contributed to rebuilding community spaces, gestures meant to acknowledge responsibility rather than erase the past.

“They were not mistakes. They were actions.”

One of the most powerful moments of the gathering in February was the intervention of Gabriel Montaño, who is appearing before Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace in connection with extrajudicial executions. 

Montaño reflected on his responsibility. “I used to think what we had done were mistakes,” he said. “Today, I understand they were not mistakes. They were actions, and those actions caused profound harm.”

His words captured a core principle of restorative justice: taking responsibility without euphemisms.

“I am responsible for what I did,” Montaño added. “And part of this process is learning to live with that truth—without ever forgetting the victims.”

For those listening, such acknowledgment does not erase pain. But it shifts the conversation.

“When someone looks you in the eye and says, ‘Yes, I did this,’ it changes the possibility of moving forward,” said Sonia Suárez, a member of ASOVIDA.

Survivors, not enemies

William Forero, a former FARC combatant who is now a community leader, offered a reframing that resonated across the room: moving beyond the language of “victims and perpetrators” to recognize one another as survivors of the war.

According to Forero, the conflict cannot be reduced to a simple battle between good and evil.

“Most of those who carried weapons were pushed there by a system that denied them opportunities,” he said.

In Granada, the war did not arrive as an external invasion. It was local young people who ended up on opposing sides.

Granada became a corridor of violence largely because of its strategic location in eastern Antioquia. 

Situated along key routes connecting Medellín with the Magdalena Medio region and the eastern plains, the municipality served as a passageway for armed groups seeking territorial control, mobility, and access to supply lines. 

Its rural geography, combined with a weak state presence during the height of the conflict, made it a contested zone for guerrilla groups, paramilitary forces, and state security forces alike. 

Control over Granada meant control over transit routes, local populations, and strategic depth, placing the civilian community at the center of competing military and political interests.

Remembering, so it does not happen again

The meeting closed around a shared conviction: memory should not trap communities in pain, but prevent repeating the offenses.  

In Granada, roads once used for war are being reimagined as paths toward reconciliation. Spaces of mourning are turning into places of collective learning.

“War is not welcome here,” one community leader said at the end of the event. “We do not want to leave our children a territory marked by violence. Our inheritance will be peace.”

In a country where armed conflict persists and political polarization runs deep, what is happening in Granada offers an uncomfortable but powerful lesson: reconciliation cannot be decreed from above.

It is built slowly, when former enemies choose to sit face to face and decide to speak.

The post Restorative justice in Colombia: Victims, former combatants come together in Granada appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombia is off to the polls in a little under a month, but what’s at stake and what could happen? And why can’t you have a drink while watching results roll in?

Every Colombian over the age of majority (18) and with a correctly registered cédula ciudandanía can vote. In return, each voter gets a half day off work. Non-citizens are not eligible to vote in national elections, but holders of resident visas will be able to vote in next year’s local elections.

The polls are open from 8am until 4pm and counting is usually very fast with the first results coming in just an hour or so later. Due to the PR system (see below), final results come through in the week. 

Land and fluvial borders will be closed for Colombian nationals on the day of the election, although foreigners can cross. From the Saturday afternoon before voting until the Monday morning, ley seca will apply, meaning no alcohol sales in bars, restaurants or shops. That applies for everyone, so no representation or boozing.

Oversight is carried out by the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral). In order to do this over the vast territory and number of stations, over 800,000 citizens are selected to be vote-counters. This is similar to jury duty in other countries and is compensated with a day off as well as a compulsory day of training a couple of weeks beforehand.

As the electorate is growing, there are now some 13,000 voting sites across the country, most with multiple voting tables. Colombians have to vote where their cédula is registered, so don’t be surprised to see some people trekking to other cities if they forgot to update their registration.

Some parties run a closed list system, meaning you simply vote for them, whereas others have open lists, meaning you vote for the party and can also vote for your preferred candidate within the party. For closed lists, the party will decide who enters congress, with an open list it will be done in order of preference.

A smidgen under 50% turnout is common for house elections, with higher figures expected for the presidential elections later this year. The Colombian parliament is a bicameral system with the Senate acting as the upper and more powerful house and the Cámara the lower house.

Most parties do not really have well-defined manifestos as such, although better-funded candidates will give a range of positions on matters. In general, there will simply be slogans and general aims that give voters an idea of where their candidates stand.

Who’s up for election?

With a PR system in place there are a plethora of parties to peruse. The country was dominated for decades by the Conservadores and Liberales and both remain strong across the country. In recent years they’ve been joined by the Centro Democrático as the third force. Expect all three to do well.

Mid-level parties include the likes of the right-wing Cambio Radical, particularly strong on the Caribbean, centrist (and not ecologically centred) Alianza Verde and ex-president Santos’ centrist partido de la U. The last election saw the leftist Colombia Humana rocket up to join these blocs.

Then there are the smaller parties, often operating essentially as almost one-man-bands. These usually have an enormous amount of support in a particular area or for a certain candidate but fail to translate this to a wider audience. It’s common to see them banding together, as with the governing coalition Pacto Histórico.

Finally, there are guaranteed seats in both the Senate and Cámara for certain groups and people. This year sees the Comunes party no longer receiving an automatic five seats in both houses that they had in the last two votes as part of the peace process. 

If you are a fan of PR, this system allows a diverse number of voices to be heard and limits the power of government, especially when there is opposition to their plans. For those more cynically-minded, it is a way to make sure that little gets done and few significant bills are passed.

There’s also the curious option of voto en blanco. Different from a spoiled vote, which is simply disregarded, this is an active protest. If it ranks highest in any race, then a rerun of the election must take place within a month with entirely new candidates and/or party lists. 

Colombian Senate Elections 2026

The Senate now has 103 seats (known as curules) and is the upper house in the bicameral system. Of those, a straight 100 are chosen by the electorate as a whole, while Indigenous communities select a further two and the runner-up in the presidential election will receive the final seat.

The Senate currently boasts a whopping 17 parties, but only six of those have double figure representation with the Conservadores’ 15 being the biggest single group. 26 parties are running 1,000 candidates between them this time. Voting is done on a national basis and tallied up across the territory, meaning this takes a little while to work out.

While there is a diverse group of parties, they hang together in loose blocs roughly delineated as government, opposition and neutral. With the government only controlling 34 curules and the opposition 24, the neutrals are incredibly important for horse-trading.

This will be a huge litmus test for the ruling leftist bloc. They will lose their guaranteed  Comunes seats, so any further losses will be highly problematic. On the other hand, gaining curules would be a huge shot in the arm in terms of public support, hence why they are campaigning in places like Huila, outside of their traditional strongholds.

The most likely outcome is that there will be little change in the makeup of the Senate, with neither the government nor opposition likely to take outright control or make large gains. Whichever of those two groups increases their representation will quickly turn it into a sign that they are on the right track and use that as support for their presidential campaign.

Cámara de Representantes election Colombia 2026

The lower chamber, too, is also up for election. It is significantly larger, with 188 seats and 23 parties. The government is also in a minority here and relies on support from independents to get things done. There are over 2,000 candidates representing nearly 500 parties, or listas of similar candidates.

The key difference in voting here is that it is largely territorial, with 161 seats divided between the departments and Bogotá, DC. The latter returns the most seats, with 18, closely followed by Antioquia with one fewer. Colombians living abroad and voting in embassies get one between them

However, these are not equal, as departments receive at least two seats, meaning Vaupés gets one representative for every 20,000 or so people, while the national average is more like 300,000. Changes in population have led to odd situations like Caldas returning more representantes (5) than Cauca (four) despite only having ⅔ of its population.

Then there are the special seats. Again, the Comunes party will lose their five extra seats in this term and it is also the last election to feature the 16 seats reserved for conflict victims. Colombians of Afro descent get two seats, while Indigenous Colombians and raizales from San Andres and Providencia have one apiece and the VP runner-up rounds it out.

Consultas for the presidential election

Just in case you thought there was enough on the plate, there are further considerations at stake. To avoid spreading the vote, various presidential candidates with similar positions group together for a preliminary vote. The losers in each consulta will drop out on March 9th. This year there are three on the voting card.

The biggest of these with 9 names is the Gran Consulta Por Colombia, which stretches the credibility of political similarity. It’s nominally centrist but features prominent rightists Vicky Dávila and Paloma Valencia alongside traditional centre voices such as Enrique Peñalosa and Juan David Oviedo. The latter is also the Centro Democrático candidate. 

The leftist consulta is under intense scrutiny as candidate Iván Cepeda, currently leading the polls, was blocked from taking part. That led to further withdrawals and angry denunciations from Cépeda and sitting president Gustavo Petro. Roy Barreras is now the favourite to win this five person race.

Then there’s a centrist competition between former Bogotá mayor Claudia López and little-known candidate Leonardo Huerta. López is the clear favourite here after perennial runner Sergio Fajardo chose to go directly to the first round of presidential voting.

At the moment, the presidential campaign is very unclear. Iván Cepeda leads polling and is extremely unlikely not to make the second round. Who joins him is hard to see at this point, so the consultas will trim that field significantly.

While the Senate and Cámara will be decided by mid-March, this is only the first lap of the field for the presidential candidates. Some will fall out, others will consolidate their position and things will start changing throughout the spring until the May 31st first round.

The post Colombian Elections 2026: How do they work? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

With Superbowl weekend about to kick off, we take a look at the best places to watch the big game as well as where to get involved with local American Football clubs.

Football that you play with your feet and a ball reigns supreme in Colombia, but there’s also plenty of support for the types of football that you play with your hands and an egg. We’ve covered Aussie Rules football and Rugby Union before, but with the Superb Owl between Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots coming up on Sunday, it’s time to look at the USA’s favourite sport in Colombia’s capital.

There’s a Colombian element this time around too, with star cornerback Christian Gonzalez lining up in the Patriots’ backfield. Born in Texas to a Caleño family, he went 15th in the 2023 draft and anchors pass coverage for New England.

He retains a great love for Colombia, saying that he’ll have mixed feelings if his country of birth and country of descent meet in this year’s World Cup in North America.

The game kicks off at 18:30 Colombian time, pretty much perfect for Sunday evening viewing. The pregame show by Green Day will be popular in Colombia, but it’s halftime that will draw all eyes to the screen.

Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny is scheduled to play and he hasn’t held back in commenting on ICE actions across mainland USA. He said “ICE out” while accepting an award at the Grammys, adding “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.” That has made him the highest profile US Latino speaking out on the issue.

Watching is easy, but playing is certainly possible, with a wealth of clubs throughout la nevera and elsewhere in Colombia. We spoke to local organiser Javier Zuleta about how local American Football works and how to get involved, whether that’s full kit or flag.

Where to watch

This is by no means an exhaustive list – the match will be widely shown around Bogotá. However, it’s a Sunday night, and that means there will be a limited number of places open anyway, so it pays to check ahead. If you’re looking for a proper atmosphere, these places will sort you out on Sunday evening.

All these venues are running DAZN and Gamepass, so you won’t have to deal with dodgy streams or any sort of hiccups. All should feature a mixed crowd of Americans watching their home sport and Colombian fans of the NFL, making for a different atmosphere than you might previously have experienced.

International Centre

Meeting House

Closest to the centre, by the centro comercial San Martín at Calle 32 #6b-43 (3rd floor), the Meeting House offers a huge screen, plenty of tables and a long bar. They expect to busy, so reserve here to assure yourself of a place at the party.

They have a large terrace/patio for smoking, as well as activities such as Beer Pong if you’re not glued to the halftime show or Bad Bunny’s been cancelled. Expect a lively party atmosphere.

There’s a range of offers on cocktails and the full kitchen menu, with picadas probably as a special offer as well for the extra-hungry. Both bottled and draft beer is available as well as a range of spirits. They have pitchers up to a whopping 5 litres to make sure you’ve no chance of going thirsty.

Teusaquillo

Shots Lab

Open from 3pm, the Shots Lab at Calle 45 #20-20 has a plethora of screens across three areas for your viewing pleasure. The early start means you can make sure you get a good seat and the number of screens means you’re assured of a good view wherever you are.

The owner is a Saints fan, so it’s pretty neutral. There’s two indoor spaces as well as an open-air patio which is cooler if it’s crowded and a dartboard if the game turns into a blowout. Rock music provides a solid backdrop.

They are running all their usual menu, as well as offers on cubetazos up until kick off o clock. Águila, Póker and Andina are at six for COP$25,000 while Club Colombia is at COP$30,000. They have an extensive menu and a good range of both beers and spirits.

Zona T

Irish Pubs

The Usaquén, Quinta Camacho and Zona T are your best bets here. They will have the games on at all locations with a dependable selection of beers and food. Best one for atmosphere is probably the Zona T where there are offers on nachos and wings with beer on a 100 inch screen.

Gigante

If you’re looking for craft beer while watching the match, this is your best bet. Owner Will Catlett serves up his own Gigante brews made locally. A California native, he’ll be backing fellow NFC West team the Seahawks.

Unsurprisingly, the screen is, well, gigante and there’s plenty of space inside to make sure you can see it. It’s conveniently located right in the heart of the Zona T at Carrera 14A #83-44.

Litre-and-a-half beer pitchers at COP$50,000 are a great deal, with 2×1 cocktails on a slew of options if you don’t want to chug the beers. Also at COP$50,000 are beer plus food (hamburger or choripan) combos to help make sure your stomach’s lined.

Wherever you end up, watching the Superbowl in Bogotá is great if you know what you’re doing. And why not consider popping along to check out some of the local teams’ training sessions – they’re friendly, welcoming and always looking for new members.

The post Superbowl in Bogotá: Where and When to Watch? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Bogotá, Colombia — In the past week, Colombians have taken to the streets on two occasions to defend the government’s minimum wage increase as it faces legal attacks by business sectors. 

On January 28 and February 3, Colombians marched in major cities in support of the landmark 23% wage increase established at the end of last year.

But the future of Decree 1469, which established what the government has called a “living wage”, remains uncertain.

“This is a major step forward by the government of Gustavo Petro. It is not just an increase; it is the dignification of workers’ wages in Colombia. That is why, as union members and as teachers, we support this mission, which directly impacts people’s everyday lives,” Oscar Patiño, an attendee of the January 28 march, told The Bogotá Post. 

For Patiño, a teacher and union leader, the protest represented a demand that the Council of State act as a guarantor of workers’ rights through its role in defining public policy.

He was part of a wave of sit-in protests in cities across the country called by labor unions, with the backing of the government, to defend the minimum wage hike. The 23% raise brings the monthly base salary to COP$1,750,905 (USD$477) and the transportation allowance to COP $249,095 (USD$68). 

In Bogotá, the demonstration was joined by Labor Minister Antonio Sanguino and lawmakers from the pro-government bloc, including Senator Wilson Arias.

“This increase no longer leaves workers’ wages below key economic indicators. It is for the improvement of their quality of life,” said another attendee, who did not want to be named.

As well as raising the base salary, December’s decree incorporated the concept of a “living wage” as an additional criterion for setting the increase. This concept is not new: it is enshrined in Article 53 of Colombia’s Political Constitution and in International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 131 of 1970.

“In that ruling, the Constitutional Court reminds the government that when setting wages, remuneration must be minimum, I quote, ‘living, and adjustable,’” said Mery Laura Perdomo, a lawyer specializing in labor, social security, and constitutional law. 

The “living wage” responds to the real cost of living, unlike the minimum wage, which barely covers basic needs. “This helps generate conditions for a dignified life in a Social State governed by the rule of law … The major shift is from a minimum wage to a living wage,” said Labor Minister Antonio Sanguino.

The government passed the decree raising wages unilaterally after failing to reach consensus with government representatives, business associations and labor unions. It determined the base salary raise based on economic criteria such as inflation (CPI), GDP, the contribution of wages to national income, inflation targets, and productivity.

But the decree generated dissatisfaction among business associations and parts of the public, prompting them to pursue legal action. 

Perdomo notes that there are two types of challenges to the wage increase: tutela actions—arguing violations of fundamental rights, specifically due process or harm to certain companies—and a lawsuit seeking the annulment of the decree.

“I believe there are no sufficient legal grounds for a potential declaration of unconstitutionality,” Perdomo said, noting that the decree grounds its constitutionality in ILO conventions, the constitution, and technical and economic studies and criteria. “There are constitutional, legal, jurisprudential, and technical-economic grounds to say that this minimum wage decree could not be declared unconstitutional.”

So far, tutela actions have not succeeded, according to Perdomo. As for the annulment lawsuit—filed by the National Federation of Merchants (Fenalco)—it is currently under review and awaiting evaluation by the assigned judge, according to the Colombian economic magazine Portafolio. The claim argues that constitutional and legal criteria were disregarded.

Portafolio also reports that the risks of the legal debate lie in the possibility that, while a final decision is pending, the Council of State could not only annul the decree but also order a provisional suspension of the wage increase.

But Perdomo warned this would be an unpopular move ahead of next month’s legislative elections: “Politically, this is risky in an electoral context, since a large portion of the population—especially low-income earners—is satisfied with the minimum wage increase. Overturning it could sour the political climate on the eve of elections and have a real impact on voting intentions.”

Meanwhile, Petro’s ruling Pacto Historico coalition, which has formed into a party ahead of the elections, has made a point of championing the minimum wage increase. 

On Tuesday, it called for rallies across the country to support the living wage, justice, and labor dignity. 

“The living wage is not a favor; it is a right. A dignified life begins with fair work, and this mobilization reminds us that labor dignity is the foundation of social justice,” declared Health Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo from Bogotá’s Plaza de Bolívar.

The post Colombians take to streets as landmark minimum wage hike faces legal challenges  appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Cars are off the road for día sin carro 2026 in Bogotá. We explain why the city does this and how to get about today.

Expect to see few cars and motos on the roads of la nevera today. Once or twice a year, Bogotá bans personal car and motorbike use for the vast majority of the city for most of the day – known as Día sin Carro y Moto. The first is scheduled for the first Thursday in February (the fifth) and there’s sometimes a second in autumn, around September.

It’s a lot more extreme than the normal Sunday and holiday ciclovía schemes, as almost all regular cars and motorbikes are banned from all roads. Obvious exceptions exist for taxis, buses, emergency vehicles, and certain key workers such as doctors.

However, expect to see streets much emptier than normal and predominately yellow with taxis and buses. Remember that there are also the white servicio especial taxis and a surprising number of exempted people travelling around, especially in central and downtown Bogotá.

The policy has been quite controversial, to say the least. Every year it leads to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from a whole host of sectors. Of course, people who usually use their cars to commute are furious, but it’s worth remembering that they are by no means the majority of the city’s commuters. 

Post-pandemic, that’s changed a lot. With the rise of remote working and home offices, it’s become much more viable for big swathes of the city to just tell people not to come in. Many schools are shut, universities are giving virtual classes and employees citywide are logging in.

A lot of people won’t even attempt to travel today, despite the fact that most Bogotanos don’t even use cars as primary transport. This reflects the growing acceptance of remote and hybrid working in Colombia, and points to a possible future with fewer commuters.

After all, Bogotá is a much nicer city if you don’t have to move around too much in it. Cities should be designed for people, not cars and motorbikes. Much of the city is still very much accessible by foot and bike, even if there are significant holes in the bus network.

So what’s the point of all of this? Well, the reason is above – Bogotá is so much more liveable without traffic jams, fumes, noise, delays and chaos. Bogotá might not be as bad as some Asian cities in terms of air pollution, but it’s certainly not a shining ecological star.

Día sin carro reduces this significantly, according to the city’s environmental department. Commute times are laughably inefficient, which leads to a lot of wasted time, lowering productivity and quality of life. And just have a listen to the quieter streets with fewer badly-tuned motorbikes.

So, what can you do on Día sin Carro 2026 in Bogotá?

If you’re out and about during Día sin Carro 2026 in Bogotá, you have several transport options.

Buses

Most people will be hopping on some type of bus, as indeed most commuters do every day. Whether it’s TransMilenio rapid bus transit, SITP buses in their rainbow of assorted colours or regular colectivos, they’re the transport lifeblood of la nevera. 

There might be a bit more crowding than usual, but off-peak it’s unlikely to be too bad. Also, there are more buses in circulation today, and they don’t have anywhere near as much traffic to navigate. You might think that in the case of the TransMi that’s not an issue, but remember that cars often get stuck crossing TransMi lanes.

Bikes 

Remember, you can always get on your bike in Bogotá. We’ve criticised the self-aggrandising capital mundial de bici posturing from the alcaldía before, but it’s still an excellent city (and country) to ride in. The bike lanes will be busier than normal, but there are plenty of them and they’re far less stressful than normal traffic.

No bike? No problem! Bogotá has a bikeshare scheme with a Brazilian company called Tembici. The system has had a few wobbles, but comes into its own on days like this. You will need to download the app to be able to use the scheme and it is relatively pricey for short term work.

Taxis

You may have trouble moving about with some rideshare apps, but the regular yellow taxis are most definitely buzzing about the city today. Apps such as easytaxi, tappsi, taxis libres et al should work as normal, just with high demand. Expect to wait a little while longer for a connection.

Hopefully, they’ll be on their best behaviour today and not taking advantage of the situation. Despite copping a lot of flak, rolo taxis aren’t nearly as bad as they’re often made out to be and have a big incentive to play nicely right now.

Walk! 

It’s a nice warm Bogotá day with fewer fumes in the air, which have been few and far between in recent weeks. Perfect conditions for a stroll in the sunshine. Most of the city is very flat and walkable, and you’re never far from a decent café to keep yourself safe from sunburn and rehydrate. Our top tip for a day like today is a limonada de coco!

The post Día Sin Carro 2026: What is it and what to do? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

A picture frame with a kind message and smiles all round: was the Colombia-USA meeting at the White House an unalloyed success?

Colombian president Gustavo Petro’s trip to Washington to meet his counterpart Donald Trump seems to have gone very well. The build-up had been pretty good, with Trump praising Petro and both sides avoiding inflammatory rhetoric.

So well did it go, in fact, that Petro ended up with a signed photobook memory of the encounter on first name terms. Trump’s handwritten note said it was a great honour to have met Petro, adding “I love Colombia”. For his part, Petro said his team was looking for solutions and invited Trump to visit Cartagena.

Trump was effusive in his praise for the Colombian president, noting that they had “not exactly been the best friends” but that he never felt offended by Petro’s rhetoric. That’s par for the course with the US leader, as he seems to often make up with people after fierce words. He ended by saying he thought Petro was terrific and they got along great.

¿Qué me quiso decir Trump en esta dedicatoria?
No entiendo mucho el inglés pic.twitter.com/biNGKcVBu2

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 3, 2026

From being sworn enemies all through last year and with sharp words exchanged just a month ago peace has broken out with surprising speed between Donald and Gustavo. In a way, it’s more of a frenemy relationship than a bromance, with both realising that it suits them better to work together for the time being.

They’re also quite similar politicians, if polar opposites politically, which means they probably understand each other better than the rest of us do. Long-winded speeches to large rallies of supporters, unpredictable behaviour, constant use of socials – they basically work in the same way towards different ends.

Fears of Petro having to walk into the famed Oval Office bearpit were laid aside the night before when it was confirmed as a behind-closed-doors meeting. That was relatively unsurprising, given the Colombia president’s reluctance to speak English.

Also in the room were the presidents’ teams, including JD Vance and Marco Rubio on the US side. However, Petro made it clear that the reunion was between himself and Trump.

The crux of the meeting was over cocaine exports, which Petro said was mainly organised from abroad, naming Dubai, Madrid and Miami as their ‘capitals’. He said sharing information and working together was key and that he had passed names to the American administration.

An insider speaking to Colombian news source El Tiempo said that they thought Trump had bought the idea that the war on drugs had to be fought against cartel leaders and not campesinos. They said that Trump had said they would go after the bosses.

Venezuela was a topic of conversation too, with both countries looking towards reestablishing relations following the fall of Maduro. For Colombia, that involves controlling the flow of drugs across the long border in the east as well as working on oil and gas exports.

Quito and Bogotá have been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war in recent weeks, which is of course Trump’s speciality. He’s agreed to step in and mediate, which is good news for Colombia as he is a key ally of Ecuadorian president Noboa.

This is not full co-operation though, as some important things have yet to be resolved. Petro remains on the Clinton List and he noted that neither himself and Trump were given to changing their ways of thinking about things. Trump mentioned sanctions, but was not clear what that referred to.

Cordial tones and friendly words might not be concrete action, but it’s a significant difference from where we were just a month ago. The USA might not be everyone in Colombia’s favourite country, but it remains a key international relationship with strong links between the nations on many levels.

At the end of the meeting, Petro came out with MAGA hats, not his usual choice of attire. He then later took to socials to show off his customisation – an ‘S’ scrawled after ‘America’. That’s a thankfully restrained and playful take that shouldn’t raise any heckles, but serves to underline the point that for all the warm words, they have sharp differences of opinion.

Making the Americas great again would be in everyone’s best interest and thankfully it seems like they may be able to put egos and differences aside in order to pursue that. If the bonhomie of this week can be converted into meaningful results, it could make a lot of people’s lives better. That’s something to hope for.

The post Petro and Trump: New Besties? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

We analyse recent homicide figures in Colombia’s capital.

Last month we looked at the latest homicide data for the city: in 2025 violent deaths went down 3.4% on the previous year. These 1,165 killings gave Bogotá – with a population of around 8 million – a homicide rate of 14.8 deaths per 100,000 of the population.

This month we look deeper into this statistic.  Why homicides? Though an imperfect indicator, murder rates do give an insight into insecurity in a zone as they are often the extreme outcome of robberies gone wrong, gang feuds, political violence, domestic violence, fights, targeted killings, drugging of victims and bungled kidnappings. Put simply, the number of bodies means the amount of crime.  

Crime patchwork

Where are homicides happening? In our own analysis of Bogotá’s 20 districts (see map below) the gritty downtown area of Sant Fe has the highest rate of 54 killings per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by nearby Los Martíres with 47, and Ciudad Bolívar with 33.

Sant Fe, like many Bogotá districts, is a patchwork of agreeable barrios, such as the touristy Las Aguas for example, and historic La Candelaria (with just three homicides last year) juxtaposed with crime-ridden neighborhoods.

But in the southwest corner of Santa Fe lies San Bernardo, or ‘Samber’ as it is known locally, generally recognized as the most dangerous barrio in Bogotá, a hub for gangs selling drugs to street people and the scene of several fatal grenade attacks in 2025.

Santa Fe is a reminder that in Bogotá safer streets are often just a block away from no-go zones. Rolos and long-term residentslearn to navigate these invisible barriers.

To emphasize this point, Santa Fe, statistically the most dangerous district in the city, lies adjacent to the leafy district of Teusaquillo with a homicide rate of 5 per 100,000 in 2025 (amounting to nine deaths), which according to this metric makes it the safest district in Bogotá.

Less grim up north

Other districts registering less than 10 killings per 100,000 in 2025 are the more upmarket northern districts of the city: Chapinero, Usaquén, Suba, Fontibón and Engativá. And as in most years, there is a gradient towards safer barrios in the north, with the dividing line running roughly along the Avenida El Dorado (Av Calle 26).

But in terms of reducing crime, there are success stories in the south. While still the most dangerous district, Santa Fe has reduced its homicide rate by 28 per cent in 2025 alongside Bosa, Usme and Antonio Nariño, all with reductions in double digits.

These results are hard to assess; organized criminal gangs are present in all these areas, so the peace could be transitory and a result of rival gangs declaring a truce, or one gang leveraging control, rather than societal shifts or better policing.

In some cases, large-scale operations have had an impact, combing security and social services in a carrot and stick approach called megatomas. In Santa Fe, for example, following the grenade attacks, the Bogotá administration both militarized the barrio and flooded it with development programs to support the huge homeless population there. This approach seems to have worked, at least temporarily.

On the negative side, three central districts (Puente Aranda, San Cristóbal and Rafael Uribe Uribe) have seen a spike in killings, a reminder of the balloon effect; pushing down on crime in one zone just forces it to pop up somewhere else.

Sicario scenarios

What’s behind the killings? Police databases do not reveal motives, but media coverage and occasional analyses by Bogotá’s Secretaría de Seguridad give insights into the city’s mean streets. 

Targeted killings, usually carried out by paid hitmen (sicarios), are for the city the visible tip of an underworld iceberg of organized crime. Hits are carried out often on the street or public spaces against identified victims by professional gunslingers sometimes recruited specifically for the job with promises of cash.

Clear-up rates are low: in June last year city councilors complained that in the first half of 2025 out of 521 homicides, 156 were targeted hits, for which only 16 people had been arrested. “In other words, 90 per cent of assassinations on Bogotá go unpunished,” pointed out councilor Julián Espinosa in one debate.

This was despite the city police’s vaunted Plan Candado – Padlock Strategy – of mobile rapid response teams and drones to quickly catch perpetrators by locking down zones within minutes of a major crime.

The most high-profile killing was the gunning down of senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, shot in the head during a walkabout in a Bogotá park. The police quickly apprehended the small-time gangsters behind the shooting in June 2025, including the 15-year-old shooter, but today despite nine arrests are no closer to revealing the paymasters behind the hit.

Another unsolved assassination was the targeted killing of emerald czar Hernando Sánchez, shot dead while walking with his family in a leafy northern suburb of Usaquén in April last year. The military-style killing, by a sniper hiding in nearby woodlands, was identical to the mysterious murder nine months before of a fellow emerald baron, known as Pedro Pechuga, also unresolved.

Weapons of choice

Despite Colombia having restrictions for private ownership of firearms, the majority of 2025 killings were with guns, at 703, according to the police database. Other weapons recorded were knives (304), blunt objects (84) and grenades (6).

This pattern has persisted for decades; Colombia, and its capital, are flooded with illegal firearms, many of them from the estimated 600,000 guns smuggled south across the border from the U.S. each year.  Just in the first four months of 2025, police confiscated 8,466 illegal weapons across the country

According to Carolina Ortega, a political scientist at the National University, and quoted by  UPI, illegal guns were used in 78 per cent of killings in Colombia.

Easy access to guns also raised the risk of spontaneous killings, according to data from the Secretaria de Seguridad which showed that40 per cent of Bogotá homicides followed a dispute, argument or scuffle.

Most of these happened outside on the street, late in the evening, and “amidst scenes of revelry and excessive alcohol consumption”, said the report, released as part of a media campaign called “Take a second before you shoot…”.

Violent machismo

Femicides went down on 2025, both in Bogotá and at national level, according to data released this week by the Observatorio de Mujeres y Equidad de Género de Bogotá.

In Bogotá during 2025 there were 97 females killed, around 8% of total violent deaths. Of these, 20 were classified as femicides. This was slightly less than in 2024 (22 deaths) and mirrored a similar reduction (7%) nationally. Nationally, approximately one killing in five of a female was later classified as a femicide, the “violent expression of machismo”, said the study.  

A study by Bogotá’s Secretaria de la Mujer found that in 49 per cent of cases in the capital, the women had suffered physical violence in the weeks before the murder, and 40 per cent had previously sought help from the police.

According to observatory data, last year Secretaria staff supported 142,688 women, of which 48% were facing violence, a slight reduction on the previous years. The 2025 figures were a reminder that although more warning signs were being detected, timely intervention was not always possible, said the report.

“Femicide does not arise from nothing: it is foreshadowed, repeated, and often normalized before reaching its most tragic outcome,” it concluded.

Pay up – or pay the price

In 2025 many Bogotá murders were linked to extortion demands, with gangs ruthlessly gunning down small business owners if they failed to pay protection money. Sometimes shop staff or a passerby were also killed or injured, in some case with grenades or explosives.

Protection rackets are nothing new in the city, but cases and killings skyrocketed post-pandemic partly because of turf wars between gangs diversifying from the drug trade and Venezuelan gangs linked to the transnational group Tren de Aragua with names like Las Satanás and Los Coyotes.

Extortion reached epidemic proportions in 2024, with an average of 200 cases a month, and continued into 2025 with a rash of crimes such as the killings of informal minibus drivers in the south of Bogotá.

Overall, Bogotá in 2025 saw extortion go down by 20 per cent compared to 2024, though it was still higher than any year during the previous decade. And already in the first month of 2026 there have been several murders linked to extortion demands including a grenade attack on a nightclub in Los Mártires last week which killed one and injured a dozen more.

Millionaire’s ride

Another death last week, that of a university professor found dead and incinerated on the outskirts of the city, highlighted increased cases of Bogotá’s infamous Paseo Millonario, where armed gangs working with taxi drivers attack and extort passengers, often torturing them to reveal bank details while they empty their accounts.

Victims are often targeted late at night leaving bars or restaurants. In a chilling twist, recent cases pointed to victims being subdued with ketamine, with the drug either killing or severely incapacitating the victim.

According to data from the GAULA (Anti-Kidnapping and Extortion Group), 40 Paseo Millonario cases were reported in 2025, a rise of 207 per cent on the previous year. Even that figure was thought to be a huge underestimate since many victims were too scared to come forward. Hotspots were in Chapinero, Kennedy, Bosa, Ciudad Bolívar, and Fontibón.

In one case a taxi gang held a victim for 19 hours, prompting the Attorney General’s Office to reclassify such crimes as “kidnapping” with a potential 42-year prison sentence. In theory this prompted the police to start responding more robustly to a crime that has plagued Bogotá for decades.

Perpetrators of these high-impact crimes were also more likely now to get locked up, with 47 imprisoned last year out of the 52 captured, which was way above average jailing rate of 6 percent of criminals arrested, according to Bogotá police chief Giovanni Cristancho, talking to RCN News last week.

But he also admitted that the understaffed police force was struggling to keep up with constantly emerging kidnap gangs, usually small teams of four or five people which could easily move around the city.

“As soon as we reinforce one area, such as around Calle 85, the modus operandi shifts to other zones,” he told RCN.

It’s that randomness, and the risk of being drugged – or worse – that makes the Paseo Millonario one of the most feared crimes in Bogotá. And for 2026, the one to watch.

The post Bogotá’s murder mosaic appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro is in the US capital for a crunch summit on bilateral relations. What’s behind it and what could happen?

After months of extremely strained relations with the US, Colombian president Gustavo Petro is now in Washington to meet his counterpart Donald Trump. The actual head-to-head is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday February 3rd. The Colombian team also includes key advisors such as the Canciller, Interior Minister, the USA business envoy and the Defense Minister.

While both sides have cooled their rhetoric, there’s plenty of unpredictability in both camps and past relations have been rocky to say the least. Petro and other members of his delegation had to be issued temporary visas just for the diplomatic visit, as Trump had previously cancelled his visa in September. 

That also applied to highly controversial Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, as well as members of Petro’s family. Before leaving, the president tweeted a particularly unusual post on X specifying that he’d visited his mother before leaving in a mildly ominous tone. He then expounded on love and sex in a non-sequiter.

Empiezo mi jornada de comunicación intensa con el gobierno de los EEUU, con mi entrevista con el representante de negocios de los EEUU en Colombia McNamara.

Antes de esta reunión he visitado a mi mamá para despedirme.

Les dejo la foto de mi mamá antes de casarse y de su amor… pic.twitter.com/7GmkV0hVwd

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 1, 2026

Petro is also somewhat predictably calling for protesters to fill the Bolívar square (as long it’s not raining) to defend the minimum wage increase, democracy and peace in Colombia. The first two have nothing to do with the Washington summit, while the latter isn’t seriously under threat from the US at this point.

Why is the Colombian president visiting Washington this week?

This was Trump’s offer after the war of words following Nicolás Maduro’s capture in early January. He initially suggested a phone call, after which a follow-up invitation to meet face to face in the White House was offered. 

After that initial call, the pair appeared to have ended up on relatively good terms, and for now there appears to be a wary calm between the Palacio Nariño and the White House. It’s too early to talk of a bromance, but there was certainly a rapid de-escalation.

The US president pointedly praised Petro’s tone in his tweet after they spoke over the phone, indicating that the Colombian president had been rather less bullish one on one compared to his public speeches and tweets. That hasn’t changed much in recent weeks.

Petro appears to have struck a far more conciliatory note when actually talking to the US president on Wednesday. For his part, Donald Trump also turned down the heat, saying it was a great honour to speak with the Colombian president and reaffirming his respect for the Colombian people.

The Colombian president went on to say that he had cleared the air and underlined that he is not connected to the illegal drug trade. He pointed out that he has stepped up seizures of drugs and has in fact been threatened various times over his life by drug cartels.

He’s gone further over the past week or so, claiming that estimates of Colombian coca crop capability in production are wildly inaccurate, especially when they come from foreign observers. He hasn’t helped matters by refusing to publish his own figures, but a recent high-profile seizure off the coast of Portugal won’t have hurt.

Petro was highly critical of Trump’s actions in the Caribbean from the outset. He warned Trump “not to wake the jaguar”, denounced his strikes on boats in international waters and convened an emergency meeting of the UN security council to investigate the Maduro affair.

Bad blood between the pair goes back a long way, with Trump’s grandstanding over deportations of Colombian nationals being met with strong pushback from Petro. Although the Colombian president eventually backed down from initial threats to not let the planes in, he met the deportees upon landing and symbolically undid their handcuffs.

Petro’s fierce criticism of the military build up in the Caribbean and Trump’s position on migration in terms of ICE and so forth had led to him and his estranged wife Veronica Alcócer being stuck on the Clinton List along with advisor and Interior Minister, Armando Benedetti.

The truth is that antagonistic public rhetoric plays well for both Petro and Trump, regardless of how much damage it may do to the reputation of either country. They both get to play the big man and impress their base, which both need right now in the face of domestic woes.

It’s entirely possible that both sides will have a relatively amiable meeting in which progress is made, before going back to lightly criticising one another in order to please their local audiences. Trump seems not to mind people doing that, even going so far as to encourage NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani to call him a fascist in a recent meeting. 

What can Petro’s team come back with?

There are a number of points to cover and a range of different outcomes on each. Military and security cooperation and guarantees are perhaps most important, with drug exportation, migration, ICE, visas and tariffs also on the table.

Much will depend on whether the meeting is televised or behind closed doors. Petro will by far prefer the latter and likely want to avoid as much as possible the media bearpit that Trump often sets up for visiting politicians.

Colombia will be looking for guarantees and assurances that US military action won’t happen on local soil. There’s no suggestion that Trump is looking to do that in the short term anyway, but it’s not hard to believe that could change, for example making a strike on cartel leaders within Colombian borders.

The USA might refuse to give an official guarantee but indicate that the option is currently off the table, which would still calm tensions significantly. Petro has made it clear he considers US military action a real danger. There’s also the possibility that the countries could agree to work together and cooperate. Again, this is likely to be far more palatable to the Colombian public.

Information sharing and support in terms of hardware and technology would be of great use to the Colombian military, after all, and both countries share a common interest in cracking down on the cartels, at least on paper.

Trump might demand a greater show of good faith from Petro in terms of action taken to combat the cartels, which is tricky. The Colombian state has been relatively efficient over the last three years at capturing drug smugglers and received little credit for it from Washington.

Colombian governments of all hues have struggled to deal with the problems of armed non-state actors, whether paramilitaries, cartels, guerillas or any mix of the above. Trump has little patience for this sort of thing and is results-oriented. That could be an excuse for unilateral action or could lead to an offer of help. Colombia will want the second of those options.

No economic instrument is more beloved by Donald Trump than tariffs, his self-declared ‘favourite word in the language’. Colombia is currently still at the global standard of 10% and won’t want that to change. That means it could be a powerful negotiating tool and Trump has threatened an increase in tariff rates at various points, as he does with many countries.

Colombia has turned more and more towards China in recent years, with Beijing helping guide construction of the Metro project in Bogotá. Trump may be looking to try and keep Colombia closer to the US economically, as fewer and fewer Latin countries treat their northern neighbour as the most important part of their trade network.

Visas, too, have been contentious. Waiting times at the US embassy were getting better but often involve months of waiting time. That hasn’t been helped by the recent freeze on residency visas for a swathe of countries including Colombia.

Speeding up processing times in Bogotá for basic American tourist and business visas would be relatively low-hanging fruit in negotiations. If both sides could agree, that would make a lot of people’s lives a lot easier and be popular in Colombia. 

In the best case scenario, Colombians can hope for no additional tariffs, military guarantees and cooperation and an easing on visas. In the worst case, Trump will impose drastic new economic measures, cancel a load of visas and keep a strong military presence in the Caribbean with eyes towards Colombia.

The end result will probably be somewhere in the middle of all that. Given the relatively calm immediate build-up to the trip, it’s most likely that an accord can be reached that both sides can present as positive if not perfect. It doesn’t suit either side to have a massive bust-up at this point, but we are talking about two politicians with a reputation for fits of pique.

More cynically-minded people may wonder if a more personal deal may be struck as well – Petro off the Clinton list and his US visa reinstated. He’s talked before about wanting to tour the world as a public speaker on social and environmental issues and this would make that easier.

Whatever does happen in the meeting, it will be pivotal for relations between the US and Colombia. With the country being one of the last in Latin America to have the USA as their biggest trade partner, that affects many ordinary people.

For the business community, the impact of potential tariffs or restrictions could be huge. For NGOs and rights workers, re-establishing foreign aid would be very useful. For ordinary folk, further controls or freezes on visas would be a real pain. For everyone, a sense that military action was definitely off the table would bring much-needed peace of mind.

The post Mr Petro goes to Washington appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

What’s coming for Colombia in 2026? A new president, a return to the world cup and all the usual sports, music and culture are ahead. There’s also plenty of uncertainty for now.

It had seemed that the only big political news of the year would be the election cycle and incoming president. However, all that changed on the first weekend of the year as the US military captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and brought him to face charges in New York.

Then at the end of January, the Corte Constitucional blocked president Petro’s economic emergency declaration, plunging the country into another round of uncertainty. While the court deliberates, the country’s businesses will have to wait to see what’s ahead. Meanwhile, minimum salary workers can celebrate their first COP$2,000,000 paychecks.

#LaCorteInforma | La Corte suspende provisionalmente el Decreto 1390 de 2025 “Por el cual se declara el Estado de Emergencia Económica y Social en todo el territorio nacional”, mientras se profiere una decisión de fondo.

Comunicado: pic.twitter.com/Ow6rC40Ixb

— Corte Constitucional (@CConstitucional) January 29, 2026

February won’t let up as Petro’s off to Washington at the start of the month to meet Donald Trump in what could be a tense meeting. While both sides have cooled their rhetoric, there’s plenty of unpredictability in both camps. This is perhaps best illustrated by Petro having to be granted a 5-day visa just to visit, Trump having cancelled his last one.

It’s anyone’s guess how that might end, with Petro currently blocking the release of coca growing figures and denying the reliability of foreign sources. In the best case scenario, Colombians can hope for no additional tariffs, military guarantees and cooperation and an easing on visas.

This is a year with big events set to dominate after a relatively quiet 2025 still managed to contain plenty of shocks and surprises. As ever, Colombia seems set to live in interesting times. We’ll be here throughout the year to keep you up to speed on what’s going on and why, from entertainment to hard news.

Another big election

Expect Colombians to grumble as they are called up for compulsory vote counting duty. There will be two sets of elections this year, with voting for the Senate and House of Representatives taking place first on the 8th of March. There will also be voting for candidates in blocks on that day.

After that, it’s the presidential race on the 31st of May with a likely run off between the top two candidates around three weeks later. The last four elections have all featured second rounds and no candidate looks capable of registering more than half the initial vote.

As with many presidential systems, there’s an enormous gap between winners being declared and them arriving in office. Pleasingly, this takes place on national days: the Senators and Representatives won’t arrive until Colombian Independence (20th July) and the president takes over on the anniversary of the Batalla de Boyacá (7th August).

The presidential runners and riders are in a very crowded field right now, but that will thin out until the 13th March, the final deadline for candidacies. The 8th March vote for various lists of candidates is especially important for this. The race remains wide open at the moment, with no clear leader and a very good opportunity for someone to come out of nowhere. 

Interestingly, there’s a good chance that Colombia will elect its first ever female and/or LGBTQI president, with Vicky Dávila, Paloma Valencia, Daniel Oviedo and Claudia López all potentially already in the mix or capable of putting together a big surge.

On the loosely defined left, Iván Cepeda is the official candidate for Pacto, having won out in the internal poll. Luis Murillo is also in the hunt, with Roy Barreras and the formerly-discredited Medellín mayor Daniel Quintero as outsiders. Cepeda will absolutely dominate the leftist vote and is very likely to make the second round as a result.

A host of candidates on the nominal right are standing, with former journalist Dávila and Centro Democrático heavyweight Valencia in the ‘Gran Consulta’ block which defines itself as centrist but would be considered by many to be at least right-leaning. 

The wildcards here are Abelardo de la Espriella, a tough on crime former lawyer who led the field in gathering public nominations at over 5 million and serial candidate and former Medellín mayor Sergio Fajardo who narrowly failed to make the second round last time around.

Harder to pin down are candidates such as Claudia López and Juan Daniel Oviedo. They could surprise some people with a strong spring surge, especially if they can channel a dislike of established parties. However, López has baggage from her time as Bogotá mayor and Oviedo is in the ‘Gran Consulta’, meaning he’ll struggle to stay in the race.

Tying up loose ends

Elsewhere in the political landscape are other issues that could do with being resolved before the change in head of state. Paz Total is nowhere near happening, with a number of talks deadlocked or non-existent, the economic emergency is currently frozen and Venezuelan relations remain unclear.

If the economic emergency goes ahead, there will be increased IVA (VAT or Sales Tax) on a range of things including online gambling, liquor and wine. There will also be a dramatic change in importation limits, with a limit of USD$50 for tax-exempt gifts.  

The ELN have asked to get back to the table, perhaps sensing that a possible right-wing government might not be quite so favourably disposed to their antics. Petro himself seems to have lost patience though, dismissing the request out of hand due to their recent attacks on Colombian army members.

Inflation will probably remain high and base interest rates are now in double digits as a result. However, the economy is chugging along decently and consumer spending remains strong. The minimum wage increase will likely help that continue and with a weakening dollar, prices may start to stabilise.

Whatever happens in Venezuela will have a big impact in Colombia. If the country opens up again, it’s entirely possible that some of the three million or so Venezuelans in the country may return. That will ease pressure in the labour market, increase trade flows and please a certain type of politician.

If Delcy Rodríguez stays in office with US support, things may be a lot more complicated. There’s not much love for the Venezuelan regime in Colombian political circles, meaning trade may not take off and there is likely to be limited cooperation on regional matters.

Ecuadorian relations also are heading in a downward spiral, with Noboa and Petro currently engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war and imposing hefty tariffs on each other. That’s choking trade across the border and affecting cooperation on cross-border security issues.

If there is a change in government, there might be more serious attempts to investigate a range of overhanging scandals such as the peculiar case of Laura Sarabia, currently ambassador to the UK and Juliana Guerrero’s and others’ mysterious qualifications.

With six months more in office, Petro has plenty of time to address these scandals or start new ones. Expect his twitter account to get even more heated between March and June as he gets involved in the election. He’s also likely to continue the ministerial merry-go-round which is past 60 changes already.

His approval ratings upon leaving office are likely to be higher than either of his two immediate predecessors. After a sharp post-election fall, he’s stayed consistently relatively popular by Colombian presidential standards and showing an uptick in recent months. For all the mutterings of doom when he came in, he’ll leave office in a relatively good position.

Big issues in Bogotá

Mayor Gálan is halfway through his tenure and has little to show for it so far. He’s managed to keep things ticking over but has not made big changes, nor has much of a legacy as things stand. The Metro was his inheritance and will be inaugurated under the next mayor, so he could do with something big this year. Trouble is, there’s nothing on his books for now.

Transport is perhaps the biggest issue, with the Metro still firmly on track. Gálan deserves credit for this, as the project has not been without problems and has endured meddling from the Palacio Nariño. Regiotram to the westerly satellite towns is also still on the way.

On the other hand, there will be even more disruption in the short term thanks to the Metro works, and road quality is awful. Road traffic incidents are stubbornly high, with nearly 500 deaths predicted over 2026.

Prices have been hiked to COP$3,550 on the Transmilenio and SITP for 2026, despite Gálan’s earlier pledge not to do so. The mayor says it’s unavoidable due to the minimum wage rise. Petro has responded by refusing to fund a new fleet of electric buses.

Water rationing was an issue this time last year, but it seems unlikely to return for the short term, thanks to the unseasonal levels of rain we’ve had over the holiday period. An El Niño event is predicted for the year but there’s little sign of it so far. 

Crime is nominally coming down, but few believe the official figures. Perceptions of crime remain high and most Bogotanos feel unsafe in the city. It’s not hard to see why – it feels like there are more and more chirretes around and fewer police.

One thing that is always in view is rubbish, with big piles over much of the city. Some of this is from an increase in fly-tipping, some from a faulty collection system struggling to keep up and others from a simple breakdown in civic values. 

A succession of Bogotá mayors have avoided the issue after Petro got into hot water in his time in office, but things are coming to a head now. It’s becoming a public health problem with rats frequently seen even in midday as well as a simple blight on the city. 

Entertainment

Peso Pluma has pulled out of Festival Estéreo Picnic 2026, but la Tigresa del Oriente has joined, which is probably a win. The best event in Bogotá, and by extension Colombia, remains a top-drawer festival with genuine international heavyweights which is well worth getting tickets for if you’re in town.

With a lineup boasting Tyler, The Creator, The Killers and Deftones, the festival is a viable cultural tourism draw if you’re visiting. Prices are competitive with North American and European fests and experiencing a Latin American festival environment is something most music fans should relish.

Balancing FEP2026 is Festival Cordillera 2026 in September, which offers a different attraction: the chance to see what (loosely defined) contemporary Latin music sounds like. The event focuses almost exclusively on Latin talent from across the musical spectrum, giving you the opportunity to explore a soundscape you may not know too much about.

Sadly, those two mega-festivals are helping sound the death knell for Rock al Parque. It hasn’t really recovered post-COVID and has been poorly managed by the alcaldía. Hopefully it can find its feet again, and the offshoots (salsa al parque, rap al parque etc) are all still strong and accessible.

Flying under the radar last year was Colombia’s first ever board games convention, Ludotopia. Given the enormous success of the event, it’s likely to run again. In other boardgaming news, Wingspan will launch an Americas expansion featuring a bevy of local aves, illustrated by Colombian lead designers Ana Maria Martínez and Natalia Rojas.

Filbo from 21 April- 5 May is the nation’s keystone for literary events, accessible and open to all with a strong focus on education as usual. The country of invitation this year is India, a welcome departure from the usual Latin or European focus and sure to open up exciting new possibilities.

Geekfest SOFA will be in October, which has turned into an absolute juggernaut of an event. Crowds will be intense in the daytime weekends, so try and make it there on weekdays or in the evenings if you’re going. Comic Con is much quieter but lacks the joyfulness of SOFA, being much more commercial in nature.

Colombian sporting specials in 2026

Colombia have a reasonably straightforward World Cup group and will be aiming high. Head coach Nestor Lorenzo has turned dressing room morale around 180° and taken los cafeteros to a runner’s up spot in the last Copa América.

With Colombia currently ranked 13th by FIFA, they are expected to do well and will be seen as a team to beat. Matching the 2014 run to the quarter-finals will be no easy task, but achievable. Surpassing it would be a real upset but it’s a funny old game and anything could happen. The squad is well built for tournament football, with key players such as James capable of burning bright for a few weeks.

There’s also plenty to keep an eye on in domestic football, with Falcao returning to Millonarios. That didn’t go fantastically well in the 2024 apertura, as city rivals Santa Fe knocked them out and went to lift the trophy. El Tigre didn’t take that well at all, throwing his toys out of the pram in a charged presser after the match. Santa Fe went on to win the Supercup at the start of this year.

After working wonders with Wrexham, Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds will be hoping to do similar for Inter de Bogotá. Previously known as La Equidad, the team changed name after being acquired by Reynolds’ investment vehicle. The actor has already donned the jersey and may appear at games in 2026.

In non-traditional sport, Cricket Colombia are celebrating their recent designation as an official sport in the country. They’re getting things kicked off with the Barranquilla Cricket tournament from February 20-22 seeing regional teams from Santa Marta, Bogotá, Cali and Medellín fighting it out to decide national supremacy. Cartagena, Santa Marta and Barranquilla are also hosting a women’s competition as the sport grows in the country.

Egg-chasers are spoilt for choice with Gaelic football in the capital as well as Aussie Rules, American football and rugby across the country. With the Superbowl coming up, if you are inspired, get in touch with the American football leagues across the country.

The Colombian women’s sevens are currently competing in the SVNS championship in Dubai and making a good account of themselves. The Toucans are punching above their weight with limited resources available to them.

AFL in Colombia continues to build momentum, and Gaelic football is becoming a bigger deal as well, with the Bogotá Beithigh practising on a more consistent basis in partnership with Colombia rugby to help build their profile.

What’s most likely to happen in Colombia in 2026?

Well, frankly put, the most likely thing is a big surprise in Colombia in 2026. Unexpected events seem to happen with regularity, so there’s every chance something comes out of leftfield. Plenty of things popped up in 2025 that we hadn’t seen coming this time last year.

Having said that, there are some good bets to lay: the economy should continue strengthening and the dollar exchange should ease back in the direction of COP$3,000 (which remains a long way off). There definitely will be a new president, even if it’s a continuity candidate and we will see changes in the Senate.

The big cultural events of 2026 in Colombia look like they’ll all be roaring successes as usual, as the country shows no sign of slowing down.

It’s unlikely that any of the peace processes will come to a conclusion and depressingly likely that they will face more turmoil if certain candidates take over in the Palacio de Nariño. While we can all hope that things will improve in the capital, there’s currently no sign that will happen. On the other hand, steady progress will continue on existing projects.

En fin, it’s likely to be six months of the usual turmoil and drama, culminating in two huge events: May-June’s presidential elections and the fortunes of the footballers in North America at the World Cup in July. Then we’ll face the remainder of the year watching what the president does in his or her first months. Whatever happens, there’ll be plenty going on in Colombia in 2026.

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Petro’s emergency order has been put on hold while the constitutional court examines its legality further. What does this mean for your pocket and the country’s future?

For the first time in Colombian history, the constitutional court on Thursday overruled a presidential order and temporarily negated Gustavo Petro’s declaration of an economic emergency. He had done that in order to get his budget through, essentially bypassing the need to get it through parliament. That’s now been put on hold.

The decree hasn’t actually been struck down, just paused while the court makes a decision on the constitutionality of the order. This means weeks of uncertainty while they deliberate. The decision was taken 6-2 with two abstentions, meaning that there’s a clear majority in favour of negation at this point.

#LaCorteInforma | La Corte suspende provisionalmente el Decreto 1390 de 2025 “Por el cual se declara el Estado de Emergencia Económica y Social en todo el territorio nacional”, mientras se profiere una decisión de fondo.

Comunicado: pic.twitter.com/Ow6rC40Ixb

— Corte Constitucional (@CConstitucional) January 29, 2026

Petro’s declaration of economic, social and ecological emergency was known officially as Decreto 1390 of 22 December 2025. No measures deriving from the decree can be implemented yet, although it will stay formally on the books for now, until the final decision is taken on whether it can stand.

Predictably, he’s reacted furiously to the news, saying that the public should decide. He claims it’s a political decision aimed at protecting the establishment and countering his progressive aims. Furthermore, he says that the court has not properly studied the executive’s arguments.

Cuando desde hace décadas la Corte Constitucional prohibió suspender provisionalmente un decreto de emergencia, la actual Corte Constitucional, sin estudiar nuestras razones, decidió hacerlo.

Se trata literalmente de prejuzgar, pero además se hace por dos razones: por que es un…

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) January 30, 2026

Even more provocatively, he’s presenting this as a rupture of constitutional order. This should not be taken lightly: he’s essentially arguing for fewer checks and balances on the presidential office. This is a common theme in caudillo politics and one that many in Latin America will recognise.

The large increase in the minimum salary is being dragged into the argument in what appears to be an attempt to win support for the president’s emergency measures. The latter is a dry matter that few take interest in and the former is something that everyone can see and many support.

While there is little to no chance of the minimum salary increase being revoked, it does stir emotions more effectively than a constitutional affair that many take no interest in. He’s also making the argument that this is class war and the working people should not have to bear the cost of the deficit.

His controversial sidekick Armando Benedetti, currently Interior Minister after a string of previous positions has also come out swinging, saying that the court does not have the right to overrule the head of state and that they are protecting the megarich.

No hay derecho. Al suspender provisionalmente la Emergencia Económica se está protegiendo a los megarricos. pic.twitter.com/0UlK6Elzti

— Armando Benedetti (@AABenedetti) January 29, 2026

While the ruling by the Corte Constitucional is unprecedented, it was not a big shock. Petro was quite clearly playing politics with the decree and is now dealing with the consequences. It was seen in December as an unusual and authoritarian move which had a good chance of being denied. A freeze was always likely, with full rejection absolutely possible.

The court justified its decision by arguing that the financial problems the country has are not exceptional circumstances that demand emergency measures, such as COVID-19 or a natural disaster. Rather, they are structural problems that require a regular solution.

More tellingly, the tribunal noted that the motivation behind the decree was not clearly defined and likely political. It went on to point out formal irregularities and problems with the legal design of the decree.   

There had been significant pushback from elected officials to the plan, with 17 departmental governors refusing to implement decree 1474, a follow-on from the economic emergency decree, claiming it was potentially unconstitutional and that this would put them at financial risk if it failed.

This opens serious questions as to the limits on the president’s power, the position of the constitutional court and the viability of future tax reforms. It also sets the clock ticking for a decision, as the Senate and House elections are coming up fast, on March 8th. If this matter is not resolved by the time presidential elections are happening, things will get complicated.

So what does it mean for my pocket?

In the short term, all the planned tax hikes are frozen. That means there likely won’t be price drops, just that some things that were set to rise significantly won’t do so. In fact, as inflation remains high, expect plenty of sticker shock anyway. 

Full-rate IVA (VAT or sales tax) was due to go onto liquor and wine, so it’s good news for rum drinkers, winos and aguardiente fans. Gamblers, too, have a reprieve as there will also be no IVA increase for online betting. Finally, smokers won’t see extra taxes on tobacco consumption.

The planned USD$50 limitation on tax-exempt gifts won’t go into effect, making buying from overseas relatively cost-effective for a while longer.

The wealth tax will stay where it is for now, with the bar remaining at COP$3.6bn and progressive rates not coming into play. However, those in debt with local tax revenue authority DIAN will not see a reduction in either interest payments or penalties for late payment.

Elsewhere in the economy, the bankers have avoided a 15% extra supertax and there will be no new charges levied on natural resource extraction. The latter were in any case only designed to be temporary.

It’s technically possible, but very unlikely, that monies already gathered will be returned. The corte constitucional has traditionally avoided retroactive economic decisions, preferring to rule in favour of protecting the state’s finances. That means some COP$800bn that has been collected will stay in limbo for now but almost certainly be unfrozen whatever happens.

What happens next?

Immediately, political and economic uncertainty, as this is only a temporary suspension to revise the legal position. That means weeks more of companies not knowing where they stand for the medium term and politicians taking the opportunity to grandstand and indulge themselves.

There are two paths from here: either the court decides that the economic emergency declaration was valid, in which case we simply revert to the original measures set out in the decree, or it is struck down and everything is up in the air.

Petro is correct when he points out that this will mean he has to borrow more to finance the running of the state, which will increase the national debt. The deficit also still stands and continues to grow, meaning in turn so does the debt. This is long-term unsustainable.

Somewhere down the line, a Colombian president will have to do something to address the deficit the country has been running for years since the collapse of the natural resource boom. However, Duque’s attempt to reform the tax system was met with massive protests and Petro has fared no better while also increasing spending. 

There are no signs that any of the candidates in this year’s election are likely to fare any better. Expect to see plenty of grandiose plans and vague suggestions but little fine detail in any manifestos. Quite simply, running on a platform of promising to increase taxation is a death knoll for any candidate.

All of the measures that could be taken are politically poisonous. Cutting spending is hard to do once people have become accustomed to it, stealth taxes abound and business rates are already high. A more progressive income taxation system would need to involve widening the tax base, which will mean more voters paying tax for the first time.

For many regular folk, just keeping their head above water is already hard enough without extra costs suddenly appearing. They won’t vote for more taxes, or even any taxes, as many are simply not taxed directly. At the same time, without significant natural resources popping up, the only way out of the middle-income trap is tax reform.

There’s also the question of the role played by the constitutional court. While nominally independent, it is supported or decried by all sides of the political spectrum depending on who it’s perceived to favour at any one point. There are already calls to ignore it in the name of the ‘people’s will’, conveniently undefined. Expect those to grow in number.

Where will Colombia go in the short term? Probably nowhere, as kicking the can down the road is still possible for a few years more. It’s likely that state spending will slow down, minor budgetary changes will get through and the country will muddle along. 

Having already lost investment grade status after Duque’s botched reform, the country hasn’t much to lose for now. There are also promising economic signs, meaning that strong GDP growth could alleviate the situation considerably. However, the national debt will be hanging like the sword of Damocles over future presidents.

The post Emergency over: Constitutional Court freezes Petro’s decree appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Bogotá, Colombia – 15 people were killed in a place crash in eastern Colombia on Wednesday morning, including a lower house lawmaker and a political candidate.

The aircraft, operated by government airline Satena, was flying from Cúcuta to Ocaña, two cities in the North Santander department in eastern Colombia, when it disappeared from radar roughly eleven minutes before landing.

After an initial search and rescue effort, authorities were alerted to the wreckage site by local farmers.

“The national government, through the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Authority, confirm with deep pain the deaths of the people who were on board the HK-4709 plane from Cúcuta to Ocaña,” read a government statement on Wednesday afternoon.

The confirmation came some five hours after the plane left radar coverage; it was due to land at 12:05PM but last made contact with air traffic control at 11:54AM.

On board the plane was Diogenes Quintero, who holds a “peace seat” in the Congress, reserved for victims of the armed conflict. Also on the flight was ​​Carlos Salcedo Salazar, a candidate for the same seat in upcoming elections.

The cause of the plane’s disappearance is unclear, but local authorities have pointed to adverse weather conditions. However, investigations remain ongoing.

The route from Cúcuta to Ocaña was inaugurated last year and welcomed as a symbolic step forward in conflict-struck Catatumbo, long disconnected by air from major cities.

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ELN guerrillas have announced the recovery of iconic revolutionary Camilo Torres. They now want his body returned to Bogotá’s National University.

Colombia’s largest rebel army, the ELN – at war with the state since 1964 – have alerted the world to the likely discovery of the long-lost remains of Camilo Torres.

The fighting priest, killed in combat with the army 60 years ago, has been found by government forensic teams in the department of Santander, the ELN said in a press statement this week.

The ELN leaked the news before the Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas Dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD) could finalize technical tests, but it was widely expected that the search is now ended for the respected cura and university professor who became a revolutionary martyr.

The ELN said they hoped his remains “would be respected and returned to the Bogotá campus of the National University”.

In the early 1960s, the young Torres was a chaplain, professor and founder of the faculty of sociology at the tempestuous Universidad Nacional. Today, the charismatic priest still figures strongly in campus iconography with his image and quotes decorating many walls.

From priest to combatant

An exponent of liberation theology – a strand of Catholicism calling for social justice in an era of extreme poverty in Latin American – Torres took to the hills in 1965 with the ELN, then a fledgling guerrilla group aligning itself with Marxist ideology.

Calling himself Argemiro, the priest quickly became an influential link between the rebels and the church, respected across the political spectrum, and a spiritual influence on socialist movements across the continent.

His most famous quote, still echoing through liberation theology, was: “If Jesus were alive today, he would be a guerrillero”.

A photo of Torres appeared in a flyer printed by the ELN in January 1966, with the academic pictured in uniform clutching a rifle alongside the words: “From the mountains of Colombia, I intend to continue the fight, weapons in hand, until I achieve power for the people. Not one step back! Liberation or death!”.

Friends divided

The latter came quicker than expected. Torres was killed in combat aged 37 on February 15, 1966, in his first action against state forces. The firefight took place in the rugged terrain around El Carmen de Chucurí, Santander.

Ironically, the army operation that killed Torres was led by General Álvaro Valencia Tovar, a childhood friend of the rebel priest. In an old article on Las 2 Orillas, the general described the pair’s friendship over many years, even while taking separate political paths; a potent reminder of personal ties tested by Colombia’s civil conflict.

According to Valencia Tovar, the ELN had prepared a deadly ambush in a jungle gorge with 35 fighters – including Torres – lying in wait for an army patrol. But the soldiers, even while taking heavy fire, outflanked the guerrillas and killed five of the ELN fighters. Torres was among the dead.

Thereafter the story was muddled: according to Valencia Tovar, the general himself took Torres’ remains to a military pantheon close to Bucaramanga, the regional capital of Santander, perhaps a form of honour for his former friend. But the exact location was never disclosed, a bone of contention with the guerrilla group who wanted to mourn their martyr.

In another historical twist, years later a video emerged of a young Juan Manual Santos – the future centre-right president of Colombia – declaring he was an “acolyte” of Torres, who was in fact his uncle.

In 2016, the then president Santos, perhaps as a gesture towards his own deceased uncle, but also as a signg of good faith during a peace process with the ELN, promised a state search for the remains of his fallen uncle. That peace process failed, like many others.

Playing for time

Over 70 years of conflict the Ejército de Liberación Nacional has proved hard to pin down: the on-off negotiations with the current Petro government mark the seventh cycle of peace talks spanning seven presidential terms since 1992, with the guerrillas still fighting.

Today, many observers see these negotiation cycles as cynical ploys by the Marxist-Leninist rebels to hold off military pressure while expanding their own territory and illicit activities, which today extends to cocaine production, illegal gold mining, extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking.

According to a profile by thinktank InsightCrime, in the last 20 years the ELN have become increasingly active in neighbouring Venezuela where they act as a mercenary army for the Chavista regime with a strong role on controlling the borders.

That dynamic shifted after the U.S. military operation in early January in Venezuela to detain autocratic leader Nicólas Maduro.

Now less welcome in Venezuela, and facing an increasingly hostile Petro government, even while entangled in a turf war with dissident FARC groups in northeast Colombia, the ELN fighters are feeling the pressure.

Blood and fire

On January 12 this year, the ELN proposed another bite at the peace apple with a new ‘national accord’. This though was quickly rejected by President Petro, who wrote on X that the guerrillas had to renounce their illicit activities – primarily gold and cocaine – before coming to the table.

During the first three years of his term, Petro suffered several perfidies by the ELN such as their surprise attacks on rival groups in the coca enclave of Catatumbo last year that left hundreds dead and thousands displaced.

Responding to the ELN offer Petro, said he had “already offered an agreement, but they destroyed it with blood and fire, and by killing humble peasants”.

It is likely the Colombian president is now holding off until after his meeting with the Trump administration in Washington scheduled for February 3.  Any reconciliation between Petro and the U.S. president – their relationship has been rocky – could open the door for increased military support to combat the ELN, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997.

Colombia’s ‘Che‘

Such a deal, combined with changes in Venezuela, could tilt the conflict in favour of Colombian state forces. And while still a potent fighting force, the ELN could prefer an escape route via the negotiation table in 2026 if talks open up with Petro or his successor.

With that in mind, it is probable that finding of Camilo Torres – miraculously close to the 60th anniversary of his death – is no coincidence, but rather a strategy in the poker game between state and guerrillas.

The wait now is for final confirmation of the remains by the UBPD.  Meanwhile the search unit is keeping mum on how, where, and when the body was found.

And if the ELN are claiming Torres as their own, then so is Petro: “The body of Father Camilo Torres Restrepo will be respected and laid to rest with honours,” he said on X this week, painting the priest as a national hero.

Perhaps putting him in the spotlight is a nod to Petro’s own rebel credentials as a former member of M-19 guerrilla group. And Torres is a timely reminder of how the ELN rebels – recently accused of human slavery in illicit mining camps  – are far removed from their ideological roots.

Where both sides agree is that his final resting place should be the National University campus in Bogotá. That´s a start. Sixty years after his death the fighting priest, seen by some as Colombia’s Che Guevara, could have a new role in bringing peace.

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