BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s human rights ombudswoman called on President Gustavo Petro Monday to suspend airstrikes against rebel groups in the South American country, after revealing that at least five teenagers had been killed in strikes conducted by Colombia’s military in October and November.
In a video published Monday, human rights ombudswoman Iris Marín said that at least one teenager, a female, was killed in a strike against the FARC-EMC rebel group in Arauca province last week, while four teenagers who had been forcibly recruited by the group were killed in another strike in the first week of October.
On Saturday, Marín had revealed that seven minors were killed in another strike against the FARC-EMC in the southern province of Guaviare, where the government has launched an offensive against Nestor Gregorio Vera, a powerful rebel leader known also as Iván Mordisco.
That means that at least 12 minors have been killed this year in airstrikes conducted by Colombia’s government.
Military prosecutors in Colombia announced Monday they had launched an inquiry into the airstrike in Guaviare, to determine if it had complied with international law.
“I want to urge the President to suspend strikes against groups in which minors could be present,” Marín said on Monday. “The life story of each one of these minors who dies in the bombardments is heart wrenching.”
Colombia’s government confirmed the deaths of the teenagers Monday, but officials have refused to suspend the strikes, and blame criminal groups in the country for putting children in danger by forcibly recruiting them into their ranks.
In a message on social platform X Monday, Petro wrote that “if strikes are suspended mafia bosses will recruit more children” because they will have realized that they will be safe from attacks if they have children among their ranks.
Petro said he would denounce rebel leader Ivan Mordisco in the International Criminal Court for recruiting children.
In a statement, the United Nations human rights office in Colombia described the recruitment of children as a war crime, and urged the Colombian government to take “all measures necessary” to prevent the recruitment of children and to take precautions to prevent their death in military operations.
The deaths of children in military strikes is a sensitive topic in Colombia, where a former defense minister resigned in 2019 after it was found that the government covered up the deaths of eight children during an airstrike in the province of Caqueta.
Petro suspended airstrikes against criminal groups shortly after he came into office three years ago, in order to decrease the possibilities of killing minors. The left wing leader had accused previous governments of committing “war crimes” when it was found that minors died in airstrikes against rebel groups.
But airstrikes against Colombian rebels resumed last year, as the Petro administration struggles to contain the expansion of groups that are fighting to take over territory abandoned by the FARC, the guerrilla group that made peace with the Colombian government in 2016.
Petro has argued that he is not hiding the deaths of children in airstrikes against the rebel groups, unlike the previous government, and says he has approved the strikes in order to save the lives of soldiers.
The Colombian president has been an outspoke critic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s drone strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, which he has described as extrajudicial executions.
Petro argues his government’s strikes are different.
“Those who are falling in the bombardments of Colombian forces have machine guns, explosives, and have declared themselves members of an armed group,” Petro wrote on X Friday. “They are trying to eliminate government forces and civilians with their lethal weapons.”
