UNITED NATIONS — Colombia’s new government told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that more than 132,000 people have been killed in the decade since its peace agreement with the FARC rebel group, the Associated Press reported via KTAR News.
Foreign Minister Omar Bula said 132,930 people were murdered between the July 2016 signing and August 2026, and that armed group membership grew from 6,000 to almost 30,000. The figures could not be independently verified, the AP said.
“The ideological and international promotion of the peace agreement as an exemplary event worthy of emulation is not borne out by the figures,” Bula said in his first address to the council.
He also cited nearly 100,000 extortion cases and more than 2,750 kidnappings. Colombia now faces the National Liberation Army, the Clan del Golfo cartel, dozens of former FARC factions and transnational criminal networks, he said.
The 2016 deal ended more than 50 years of war that killed over 220,000 people and displaced nearly 6 million; about 14,000 fighters laid down their weapons.
Conservative President Abelardo de la Espriella took office in August.
Sources: Associated Press via KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Alejandro Turola / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
