Colombians are expressing outrage and grief after a bombing attributed to dissident factions of the former FARC killed 20 people and left injured 46, marking the country’s deadliest attack in over a decade.

The blast on Saturday afternoon tore through a stretch of the Pan-American Highway near Cajibío, in the southwestern department of Cauca, leaving mangled vehicles, a massive crater, and scenes of devastation that authorities described as among the most brutal assaults on civilians in recent memory.

Departmental governor Octavio Guzmán said the explosion, which injured at least 36 people, including children, was the “most ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades,” adding that several vehicles were overturned by the force of the blast.

Military officials said attackers blocked traffic with a bus and another vehicle before detonating explosives as cars and buses were stranded along the highway, a vital artery linking Colombia’s southwest with the cities of Popayán and Cali.

The attack, attributed to a FARC dissident faction led by Iván Mordisco, came amid a surge of violence across southwestern Colombia, with authorities reporting at least 26 attacks over a two-day period in Cauca and neighbouring Valle del Cauca. Incidents included explosions, arson attacks on vehicles, and assaults on security forces in cities such as Cali, Palmira, and Jamundí.

But as the country mourns, President Gustavo Petro faced mounting criticism after posting images of himself celebrating his birthday, prompting accusations of insensitivity and a lack of leadership during a national crisis.

Late on Saturday evening, Petro shared a photograph on social media showing himself alongside three friends, all wearing Hawaiian-style flower garland necklaces, accompanied by a message marking his birthday on April 19. “Surrounded by love and bonds of affection,” Petro wrote. “We are an army of Quixotes doing the impossible and achieving the impossible.”

The post, which appeared hours after reports of the deadly attack emerged, sparked immediate backlash from political leaders and the public, many of whom questioned the president’s priorities at a moment of national mourning.

Senator Juan Manuel Galán criticized the timing of the message, writing on social media: “19 people murdered in Cajibío, Cauca, the country bleeding, the Pan-American highway turned into tragedy… but the priorities of Gustavo Petro were clear: the country in mourning and he showing us how he celebrated his birthday.”

Presidential hopeful Paloma Valencia travelled to Palmira to meet with victims’ families and express solidarity. “We are with the people who are afraid, who are mourning their loved ones, who need to feel safe again. Petro should be here,” she said.

The criticism underscores deep tensions surrounding Petro’s security strategy, particularly his “Total Peace” policy aimed at negotiating with illegal armed groups. Critics argue the approach has failed to contain violence in regions such as Cauca, where armed groups linked to narcotics trafficking and illegal mining continue to operate with increasing intensity.

Saturday’s bombing, one of the most lethal attacks since the 2016 peace accord with the FARC, has renewed fears about Colombia’s security trajectory and the resilience of dissident factions that refused to demobilise.

Images from the scene showed debris scattered across the highway, shattered vehicles, and a large crater where the explosion occurred. Authorities confirmed that 15 women and five men were among the dead, while several of the injured remained in critical condition.

For residents of the region, the attack has deepened a sense of vulnerability and abandonment.

“Cauca cannot continue to face this barbarity alone,” Governor Guzmán said, calling for greater national support and a stronger security response.

As Colombia approaches a general election on May 31, the attack also reveals the extent to which  the state remains unable to protect civilians, let alone presidential candidates opposed to the failed security policies of the country’s first leftist administration. “Petro: You are simply a disgrace. Show some empathy. Show some respect,” noted Paloma Valencia from Palmira.

 

A bomb attack attributed to fighters from the EMC armed group killed 20 travelers trapped on the busy highway connecting Colombia’s southwestern cities on Saturday.

The tragic events in the El Tunel sector, close to the town of Cajibío, unfolded after the dissidents mounted a checkpoint on the main Via Panamericana south of Cali and 30 kilometers (20 miles) before Popayán.

The busy road runs through a mountainous region dominated by gangs run by the former guerrillas dedicated to a booming cocaine industry in hidden canyons beyond state control. At the illegal checkpoint the fighters forced truck drivers to block the road and abandon their vehicles, causing a long queue of traffic.

According to video posted online, soon after a midday the huge explosion rocked the valley mangling around 15 vehicles caught blockade including two minibuses with civilian passengers.

The governor of Cauca, Octavio Guzmán, confirmed the 20 dead civilians caught in the blast were 15 women and five men, all adults. A further 47 people were injured, of whom three were critical. Five children were recovering in hospital. Eleven of the affected persons came from the same village of Pedregosa, close to Cajibío, he added.

“What happened on April 25th constitutes the most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades in the department of Cauca,” the governor later announced.

The bomb had displaced 200 cubic meters of soil, he said, creating a crater five meters deep in the Panamericana highway, the main route linking Cali to Popayan and on to Ecuador. Despite the damage, road crews were able to partially reopen the road six hours after the blast.

Saturday’s attack, one of the worst atrocities in recent years, comes against a background of rising conflict between state forces and dissident armed groups in the southwest of Colombia.

#ULTIMAHORA

A nuestro medio de comunicación llega video #PRIMICIA del momento exacto donde explota el artefacto explosivo en el sector conocido como el TÚNEL CAJIBIO CAUCA entre popayan y piendamo @Noti90Minutos @DELAESPRIELLAE

Noticia en desarrollo pic.twitter.com/g4KEcSroYd

— SARCASTICO DE DERECHA (@esco27438) April 25, 2026

Terrorist tactics

Just in the last four days communities across three departments – Valle, Cauca and Nariño – reported a series of what appear to be coordinated attacks against civilian and military targets. These included:

• 24 April – A bus bomb exploded close to base of the Pichincha Battalion in the south of Cali, causing damage and three injuries.
• 24 April – In the nearby town of Palmira, Valle, an army base came under attack from cylinder bombs launched from a passing vehicle, no injuries were reported.
• 25 April – Two attackers launched grenades at a petrol station in Rozo, Valle, damaging vehicles.
• 25 April – A police station in the rural community of Potrerito, close to Jamundí, came under gunfire attack in the early hours of the morning.
• 25 April – In another morning attack, Aeronáutica Civil reported drones launching explosives against a hilltop air traffic station close to El Tambo (Cauca), damaging antennas and leaving the radar inoperative.
• 25 April – a chiva rural bus was hit by explosive charges while traveling on Route 25 near to Mercaderes, south of Popayan. Police reported several injured including a child but no deaths
• 26 April – four men were gunned down in a bar in Toro, Valle, between Cali and Pereira.

According to a tally by thinktank Indepaz, the Toro deaths were the 48^th massacre recorded in 2026. In Colombia a ‘massacre’ is defined by the intentional killing of three or more people at the same time.

This weekend’s attacks were typical of a return to terrorist tactics such as car bombs, motorbike bombs, drones dropping home-made explosives and other artisanal artefacts.

Saturday’s Cajibío attack was initially reported as a boobytrap bomb, or “IED” (Improvised Explosive Device) which are caches of high explosives buried by the roadside by rebel groups, usually aimed at passing military patrols

But later reports suggested the civilian vehicles were struck by a pipeta mortar. These are fashioned from household gas bottles and clumsily launched from mortars made of industrial piping.

Notoriously inaccurate, a pipetas have claimed many civilian lives in the Colombian conflict, most notably in the Chocó town of Bojayá in 2002 when a charge launched by FARC guerrillas struck a church killing 79 civilians sheltering inside.

Behind Saturday’s atrocity was alias ‘Marlon’ of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), said Colombia’s defence minister of defence Pedro Sanchez. The state offered a reward of US$140,000 for information leading to his capture.

Original dissidents

Marlon, whose real name is Iván Idrobo, was formerly in the ranks of the FARC guerrillas where he trained as a bomb maker. He is now thought to lead the EMC’s Frente Jaime Martínez which according to the Defensoria del Pueblo controls the cocaine trade, illegal gold mining and extortion rackets around the town of Suárez in the northwest of Cauca.

The EMC, lead by former FARC chief Iván Mordico, has proven to be the most intransigent of the myriad of armed groups which the current Petro government has tried to broker peace with under his controversial Paz Total policy.

See also: Peace Plan has Caused more Conflict, says Thinktank

Seen as the “original” dissidents that rejected the partly successful peace process under former president Manual Santos in 2016, the EMC initially agreed to negotiate when Gustavo Petro came to power in 2022 but soon engaged in bitter infighting with rival armed groups creating a rupture with Paz Total.

For his part, Petro tweeted his disgust at the Cajibío attack and the EMC “narco-terrorists” behind it.

“The groups led by Iván Mordisco in Cauca are criminals who have committed crimes against humanity and must be treated as such,” he said.

Some pundits commented that Petro’s early treatment of the EMC as a political actor had given the armed group room to expand, contributing to the current security crisis. In the heat of next month’s elections, others turned their ire on presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, seen as an architect of Petro’s struggling peace plans.

Rival right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia accused Cepeda of his role in “tying the hands of state forces, the rampant increase in illicit crops, the historic numbers of massacres, and waves of violence like today’s”.

Valencia also rounded on Petro for posting photos of his birthday celebrations even as the country was reeling from the horrific footage of the Cauca bombing. “Show some respect,” she messaged.

The post Dissident bomb kills 20 civilians at roadblock in southwest Colombia appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

On Wednesday, the Universidad de la Sabana and the National Federation of Departments (FND) hosted the Governors’ Summit, a rare event that convened almost all of the frontrunners in Colombia’s presidential race.

Paloma Valencia, Abelardo de la Espriella, Sergio Fajardo, Roy Barreras, and Claudia López fielded questions from regional authorities about how they planned to tackle problems in Colombia’s provinces.

While Iván Cepeda, the leftist favorite, was scheduled to attend, his team pulled out at the last minute, fuelling the candidate’s reputation for being media-shy.

Early on Wednesday morning, governors and their aides began filtering into the heavily policed event in Chía, a municipality north of Bogotá.

The FND selected questions from governors which were then posed to candidates by the two moderators: El Tiempo Director Andrés Mompotes and his counterpart at radio station La FM, Juan Lozano.

The main themes of the day were tackling insecurity and armed groups, investing in regional development, and mechanisms to improve provincial representation.

For some governors, the event was an opportunity to redress an acute crisis; Erasmo Zuleta, who heads the local government in Córdoba, used the forum to highlight the ongoing effects of disastrous floods which began earlier this year.

“The emergency didn’t pass, nor did the tragedy. The floodwaters receded, leaving behind widespread damage; they took lives, homes, crops, and material possessions,” Zuleta told The Bogotá Post.

“Now more than ever, we need greater solidarity to recover from the damage,” continued the Governor, in a bid for help from the national government.

Another recurring theme was prison reform, following a recent scandal over a concert that took place in the Itagüí prison in Antioquia.

Abelardo de la Espriella, the firebrand criminal defense attorney and right-wing frontrunner, used the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime proposal.

“In Colombia, there are no prisons—there are universities of crime,” said de la Espriella, who took aim at the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), which he described as “a den of thieves.”

The candidate added that Colombia should look to El Salvador to develop its incarceration model, praising dictator Nayib Bukele’s draconian mass imprisonment efforts that have dramatically reduced crime and drawn condemnation from rights’ groups.

Security, more broadly, was also high on the agenda, as Colombia grapples with a surge in violence related to illegal armed groups.

“Today we are living in the grip of insecurity. They want to drag us back into the abyss we thought we had left behind,” railed Paloma Valencia, the candidate for the right-wing Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party. 

Fears of insecurity affecting democratic processes have overshadowed the elections, with the United Nations issuing a warning earlier this year that armed groups could disrupt the vote.

The Valle del Cauca department has been one of the most heavily affected by the armed conflict, with its capital, Cali, rocked by a wave of bomb attacks by rebel groups in the past year. 

But its Governor, Dilian Francisca Toro, offered reassurances in conversation with The Bogotá Post: “We ensure that in every municipality and across all regions, law enforcement is present so that we can have free, democratic elections where there is no restriction whatsoever on the ability to vote.”

Toro also cited the elections on March 8 as an example of the success of security planning: “In Valle del Cauca we really had very peaceful elections, and now, God willing, we will have them again.”

Amid the mounting threat by armed groups, candidates De la Espriella and Valencia vow an iron fist, using military force to crush rebel forces. They model themselves after former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who teamed up with the U.S. to launch a total war on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

But leftist Iván Cepeda highlights the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government during that period, in which thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. He proposes to continue the current administration’s Paz Total – or Total Peace – policy of negotiating with armed groups.

But Cepeda missed the opportunity to make his case to the public, fuelling criticism by his opponents.

De la Espriella has repeatedly called on Cepeda to agree to a debate, but the leftist candidate has yet to accept.

With less than two months before the May 31st election, there are increasingly few opportunities for the candidates to make their case before the public.

The post Colombia presidential candidates appear in Governors’ Summit appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro ran for president on a campaign promising Paz Total—Total Peace. He promised to give the FARC dissidents, the vicious ELN guerillas, and mafias like the Clan del Golfo a good talking to, and with that, they will just lay down their weapons and become model citizens. Petro promised that through dialogue with bloodthirsty kidnappers and extortionists, they would be willing to stop being bloodthirsty kidnappers and extortionists; as if they are just misunderstood little muffins who only need a hug.

According to figures compiled by the Universidad Externado and reported by The City Paper Bogotá, Colombia has recorded 40,663 homicides during the first three years of the Petro presidency. Over 400 human rights defenders have been slaughtered between 2022 and 2025 according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Human Rights Watch reports that the ELN and FARC dissidents have expanded their territories by up to 55%. They are taking back over Colombia.

Under Gustavo Petro’s watch, Colombia has returned to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index top ten list of countries impacted by terrorism, along with Total Peace destinations like Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Syria. Just this past week, a Clan del Golfo poster was put up within walking distance from the Aeropuerto Internacional José María Córdova just outside of Medellín. This Total Peace nonsense is a failure.

Right now, in the neglected Pacific department of Chocó, the ELN has kidnapped whole communities. Petro ran a campaign promising that he was going to embrace these historically neglected communities—places like Chocó, Nariño, La Guajira, and Norte de Santander—but insecurity is increasing. Chocó’s governor, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, says 6,047 people are trapped inside of their homes because the ELN has announced an illegal armed curfew in the municipality of Bajo Baudó. Most of these people are already poor, and now they have been kidnapped en masse by this guerilla group that operates with impunity because Gustavo Petro coddles them with “dialogue.”

According to Governor Córdoba, they attacked the police station in the village of Santa Rita using grenades attached to drones. It has gotten so bad that Colombia has restricted the entry of drones into the country. These people are calling out for help, but the president insists on talking as the ELN grows and continues to menace the police forces, the Colombian military, and, most importantly, the innocent public.

There is currently public disorder where belligerents have completely blocked the roads in the north of Antioquia, in the region called Bajo Cauca, and also in the neighboring department of Córdoba. The city of Caucasia is under curfew. Antioquia’s Governor, Andrés Rendón, has urgently called on the national government to stop the talk and take action. Groups are attacking ambulances and burning people’s motorcycles as they try to get by the roadblocks, regardless of the emergency.

Governor Rendón stated: “There can be no dialogue amidst blockades and human rights violations. It’s been seven days now with the Bajo Cauca region paralyzed and the country held hostage by chaos.” He called on the Fiscalía General de la Nación to bring those responsible to justice and challenged the Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, to order the immediate reopening of the roads. “We’re not talking about small-scale miners here; behind this are criminal structures, as everyone knows, that finance themselves through illegal mining and move billions of pesos,” Rendón added, demanding full authority against the criminals who use communities as a shield.

El gobernador de Antioquia, @AndresJRendonC, se pronunció sobre la situación de orden público en el Bajo Cauca, en medio de los bloqueos que ya completan varios días y afectan la movilidad y la seguridad en la región. @GobAntioquia pic.twitter.com/4SPQgTa68r

— MiOriente (@MiOriente) March 22, 2026

The current situation with these organized criminal groups—whether regular mafias like the Clan del Golfo or murderous Marxist guerillas like the ELN and the FARC dissidents—is reminiscent of a classroom where a substitute teacher has lost all control. Petro promised Total Peace, but the result has been Total Chaos. Investors do not want to deal with this mess. While the Petro government claims they want tourism to be a major economic driver, road blocks make many areas look like scenes out of Mad Max: Road Warrior. Whole zones of the Pacific coast are unsafe even for residents, met with pure impotence from the regime.

Ten years ago, it was safe to drive from Medellín to the beachside town of Coveñas in Sucre, but that is no longer the case. While it remains safe to visit Colombia for business or tourism in major hubs like Bogotá, Medellín, Santa Marta, or the San Andrés islands, the long-term outlook is concerning. My hope is that Colombians choose a future leader serious about law and order as a prerequisite for human rights. It is not only the government that we need to protect human rights from; those who kill, steal, kidnap, and forcibly recruit children are violating those rights as well.

 

Colombia is at risk of sliding back into one of the darkest chapters of its recent history, according to a stark new report by the United Nations, which warns that escalating violence, territorial control by illegal armed groups and political instability are eroding hard-won human rights gains.

The annual assessment by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights paints a troubling picture of 2025: a country where armed actors have deepened their grip over rural regions, civilians are increasingly trapped in conflict zones, and the implementation of the 2016 peace accord is under growing strain.

At the heart of the report lies a central warning — Colombia faces the “possibility of reverting” to pre-peace agreement levels of violence, particularly in territories where the state remains weak or absent.

Armed groups expand control

Across large swathes of the country — from the Catatumbo in Norte de Santander to the Pacific coast — non-state armed groups and criminal organizations have consolidated control over vulnerable populations, imposing what the report describes as “illegal armed governance”.

The criminal groups mentioned- Clan del Golfo, ELN, FARC dissidents – are responsible for a wide range of abuses: forced displacement, confinement, selective killings, sexual violence and the recruitment of children. Entire communities, especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations, are subjected to coercion and forced participation in illicit economies. “Afro-descendant communities, particularly in regions such as Chocó, continue to face severe human rights violations due to the presence and social control exercised by non-state armed groups,” claims the report.

Even in areas where a single armed group dominates and overt violence is less visible, the UN notes that civilians live under strict systems of control, with basic freedoms curtailed and fear pervasive.

The UN documented 53 verified massacres in 2025, leaving 174 victims, the vast majority attributed to armed groups fighting over control of illegal economies such as drug trafficking.

The report also highlights a disturbing increase in indiscriminate attacks, including the use of explosives and drones in populated areas. Cities such as Cali were directly affected, with civilian casualties mounting as conflict spills into urban spaces.

In one incident in the southern department of Huila, a motorcycle bomb targeting a police station killed civilians and injured dozens, underscoring the growing risks faced by ordinary Colombians.

Child Recruitment

One of the report’s most alarming findings is the worsening situation for children.

The UN verified 150 cases of child recruitment in 2025, though it warns this represents only a fraction of the true scale due to underreporting and fear of retaliation. Armed groups are increasingly using social media platforms to lure minors, glamorising violence and illegal economies.

In some cases, children recruited into armed groups were later killed during military operations, raising further concerns about protection mechanisms.

Schools have also become battlegrounds. Armed groups have occupied educational spaces, disrupted classes and used them as recruitment grounds, particularly among Indigenous communities at risk of cultural and physical extinction.

Gender-based violence

The report details systematic patterns of sexual violence, exploitation and coercion, particularly against women and girls in conflict zones.

Armed groups have imposed control over reproductive rights, restricted access to healthcare and, in some cases, forced pregnancies. Girls are often recruited through manipulation and emotional coercion, only to face abuse, forced labour and sexual violence once under the control of armed actors.

Indigenous, Afro-descendant and migrant women are disproportionately affected, facing layered vulnerabilities exacerbated by institutional absence.

Pre-Election violence

As Colombia moves through a politically sensitive period, the report identifies a sharp rise in preelectoral violence.

The killing of the right-wing presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in August 2025 marked a dramatic escalation, while the UN recorded 18 assassinations and 126 attacks or threats against political leaders and candidates.

Nearly 650 municipalities were classified as high-risk zones by Colombia’s Ombudsman, raising concerns about the integrity of democratic participation.

The report also points to a surge in digital harassment. “Violence has also extended into the digital space, with an increase in hate speech and discriminatory discourse on social media platforms.”

Humanitarian conditions have deteriorated significantly. According to UN data, mass forced displacement rose by 85% compared with 2024, driven largely by clashes between armed groups. In Catatumbo alone, nearly 90,000 people were displaced, alongside a wave of killings, kidnappings and child recruitment.

Confinement — where communities are effectively trapped by armed actors — has also increased, restricting access to food, healthcare and livelihoods, particularly in departments such as Chocó and Cauca.

Despite these challenges, the report acknowledges partial progress in implementing the 2016 Final Accord with the ex-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla.

While land reform initiatives have advanced, delays in formal land titling and uneven territorial implementation continue to limit impact of the 2016 agreement. The killing of 45 former FARC combatants in 2025 — a 36% increase from the previous year — highlights ongoing security gaps in reintegration efforts. “The United Nations Verification Mission documented the continued killing of former FARC, underscoring persistent security risks despite a peace agreement.”

A recurring theme throughout the United Nations report is the insufficient presence of the state in conflict-affected regions. It warns that weak institutional reach continues to limit protection for civilians and the effective implementation of security and development policies. The report also notes that “coca cultivation rose by 3% to 262,000 hectares in 2024,” although growth has slowed for a third consecutive year, cautioning that underfunded substitution programmes risk undermining efforts to transition to legal economies.

In many cases, responses by security forces have been too slow or insufficient to prevent abuses or protect communities.

A critical moment for Colombia

The UN concludes that Colombia stands at a pivotal juncture.

Without stronger coordination, sustained investment and a renewed focus on protecting civilians, the country risks undermining nearly a decade of peacebuilding.

“The persistence of violence and the strengthening of armed groups continue to gravely affect the civilian population,” the United Nations warns — a stark signal that security conditions are deteriorating across Colombia. As the country enters a polarised election season, the report suggests the stakes are no longer confined to preserving the 2016 peace accord, but to preventing a broader erosion of state authority and civilian protections in territories most at risk.

The school year had barely begun when gunfire forced children in rural northern Colombia to cower under their desks in fear and silence.

On the same day students were returning to classrooms after the Christmas and New Year holidays, fighting between illegal armed groups erupted near Briceño, in the northeast of Antioquia. By nightfall, schools were shut, a rural health post had closed, and families were sheltering under their beds as rifle fire echoed through nearby hills.

Local authorities say at least 28 rural school sites have been forced to close, cutting off education for some 375 children who now remain at home under a temporary non-attendance model. In several villages, students had already arrived at their classrooms when the clashes began, leaving teachers scrambling to keep children indoors and away from windows as shots rang out nearby.

“For these children, school should be a place of safety,” said Mayor Noé de Jesús Espinosa. “Instead, it has become another place of fear.”

Fighting between Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan) and the 36th Front of FARC dissidents has now drawn-in the state’s security forces. The violence has also shut down the health center in the village of El Roblal, leaving residents without medical care at a time when movement between villages has become too dangerous.

Across at least ten rural communities, daily life has ground to a halt. Public transport and cargo services have been suspended, cutting off supplies of food and medicine. Roughly 500 people are now confined to their homes, many lying on the floor or hiding beneath their beds to protect themselves from bullets and explosive shockwaves.

“In some houses, entire families are sleeping under their beds,” Espinosa said. “They don’t know when the shooting will start again.”

Fear has already driven at least 23 families to flee their homes. Carrying only what they could gather in minutes, they arrived in Briceño’s town center seeking refuge with relatives and friends. Municipal officials are now coordinating emergency aid, while warning that more displacement is likely if the fighting continues.

The violence is rooted in a territorial dispute over the Cauca River canyon, a strategic corridor connecting Antioquia’s Bajo Cauca region with the west of the department. Military intelligence and local sources say the escalation follows an order by alias “Gonzalito,” identified as a senior commander of the Clan del Golfo, to eliminate alias “Primo Gay,” leader of the dissident 36th Front, and seize control of the area.

For residents, however, the strategic calculations of armed groups mean little. What they feel is the constant fear — the uncertainty of whether children can return to school, whether the sick can reach a clinic, and whether families will be forced to flee again.

Army units from the Fourth Brigade are advancing cautiously toward villages such as El Roblal, slowed by the presence of improvised explosive devices and suspected minefields planted along rural paths. The risk has made it difficult for troops — and humanitarian assistance — to reach many isolated communities.

Antioquia Governor Andrés Julián Rendón has urged the national government to maintain a permanent military presence in the area, warning against further troop withdrawals.

“Peasant communities in Antioquia’s most remote regions deserve to live without fear,” Rendón said, recalling that promises made last year to keep troops in Briceño were later reversed.

The trauma is not new. In October, more than 2,000 people — roughly a quarter of Briceño’s population — were forced to flee 18 rural villages after threats from armed groups. Many slept for days in the town’s main square and urban school, unsure if they would ever return home.

As indiscriminate violence once again targets the country’s most vulnerable and forces families to lock themselves inside their homes, residents fear the humanitarian crisis will deepen across Antioquia, just months before Colombians are due to cast their votes in the May 31 presidential election.

The Puracé volcano in southwest Colombia has registered a noticeable uptick in seismic and gas-emission activity over the last 24-hours, prompting authorities to maintain heightened monitoring of one of the country’s most active volcanic systems.

The Colombian Geological Service, known as the SGC, said the latest measurements indicate an increase in seismic signals associated with the movement of fluids beneath the crater. Those signals — including continuous volcanic tremor and distinct long-period events — are typically generated as gases, hot water or small amounts of magma shift through fractures inside the volcanic edifice.

The changes have been visible at the surface. According to a bulletin released by the agency, the volcano has produced columns of gas reaching up to 1.6 kilometers, drifting mostly toward the southwest, sometimes carrying small quantities of ash. While limited in scope, those ash emissions qualify technically as minor eruptions.

Cristian Santacoloma, a volcanologist at the Popayán Volcanological and Seismological Observatory, said the most significant variations occurred on Tuesday, November 25. “We have seen an increase in the constant flow of gases to the surface,” he said, noting that the greyish plume observed during the morning hours contained particulate material consistent with ash. The tremor signals, he added, point to “sustained mobility of fluids within the volcano.”

The Puracé’s summit reaches 4,650 meters (15,256 feet) and sits at the northern end of the Los Coconucos volcanic chain, a line of 15 eruptive centers aligned across the highland terrain of the department of Cauca. Its structure includes two concentric craters and an active fumarolic field on the northern flank known as the Fumarola Lateral. Much of its surface is stained yellow and white from chemical deposits carried by persistent gas discharges.

The region surrounding Puracé is shaped by a long geological history: the volcano rests on an older formation known as Pre-Puracé, which itself developed along the rim of the ancient Chagartón caldera. Its eruptive products include layers of pyroclastic material and andesitic lava flows — evidence of repeated cycles of explosive and effusive activity.

The volcano remains under a Yellow Alert, a mid-tier warning that indicates changes in activity but no immediate threat to surrounding communities. In this state, specialists say, Puracé may produce sporadic ash emissions, small explosions inside the crater, localized sulfur precipitation and, under certain conditions, minor lahars.

The SGC has maintained continuous monitoring of the volcano since 1986. In recent years, its surveillance network has expanded to 32 stations equipped with 65 sensors measuring seismicity, ground deformation, gas composition, temperature and other variables that help scientists detect early signs of escalation.

Authorities have urged residents of Popayán, the departmental capital of Cauca, as well as nearby Indigenous and rural communities to follow official updates and respect any restrictions put in place by park administrators or the National Disaster-Risk Agency (UNGRD). While the current activity is not unusual for Puracé, experts say that sustained changes in seismic patterns requires careful attention.