Photo: GERARDO GOMEZ / AFP / Getty Images
By: EFE
Monday, November 18
They reveal that 22 minors died in bombings by the Colombian Army in 3 years
At least 22 minors died in bombings by the Colombian Military Forces against FARC dissident camps , of the Clan del Golfo and the guerrillas of the Army of National Liberation (ELN) during the government of Iván Duque, which began on August 7, 2018.
This was denounced by Senator Iván Cepeda, who is part of the leftist party Polo Democrático Alternativo, who stated in a press conference that his Legislative Work Unit (UTL) carried out an investigation on the minors killed in bombed camps and based on the reports of the state Institute of Legal Medicine (forensic unit) .
“In the right of petition sent to Forensic Medicine we established that of those 21 bombing in siet e, that is, in a third part, there were deaths of children and adolescents. At least 22 under 18 years have died in these operations carried out by the Military Forces, “said Cepeda.
As detailed, of the 22 minors died, thirteen were men, seven women and there are two whose sex was “impossible to determine” by Legal Medicine by the state in which the bodies were found.
Most, he added, had between 15 and 17 years, although there were also some Come in 10 and 13 years.
“For those who want to justify the many You say that they were already older than 15 years, we remind ourselves that the additional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, relative to the participation of persons under the age of 18 years in armed conflicts, was approved by Congress (…) in 2003 ”, added Cepeda.
It also pointed out that this research shows that “the practice of carrying out air strikes against places where children and adolescents are unarmed has a customary, systematic and generalized nature.”
The cases
Among the cases mentioned today by Cepeda is the of four minors among the eight who died in the Army’s bombardment of the ELN on 16 of September in the municipality of El Litoral de San Juan, in the Chocó jungle (west).
Likewise this year, other minors have also died in bombardments by the Army against the guerrillas, since an indigenous person from 16 years passed away on 5 July in an attack against a FARC dissident camp in a rural area of San Vicente del Caguán , in the south of the country.
The deaths of several children and adolescents were also reported on March 2 in an attack on the dissidents under the command of Miguel Botache, alias “Gentil Duarte” , in the municipality of Calamar, in Guaviare (south).
Defense Minister Diego Molano then justified the “legitimate use of force” against minors recruited by armed groups because, according to alleged, they cease to be victims and become “d e war that they threaten Colombian society. ”
A similar case occurred on 29 of August 2019, also in San Vicente del Caguán, when the Army bombed a FARC dissidents and more than two months later it was revealed that there were eight minors among the victims, which accelerated the resignation of the then Minister of Defense Guillermo Botero.
Faced with all this, Cepeda announced this Tuesday that he will file a petition to make a new motion of censure against Minister Molano for your responsibility in these military operations.
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