🗞️ Following the 7.4-magnitude earthquake last Monday, people across Colombia continue efforts to rescue those trapped in buildings and treat the injured. The death toll now stands at nearly 300 people, with over 4,000 injured and hundreds more missing, with 100,000 people and 15 of the country’s 32 departments affected.
A national emergency has been declared as a result of the earthquake, which will allow increased presidential power via executive decree. Some areas remain in ‘search and rescue’ phases of humanitarian response, while others have begun to repair and rebuild infrastructure and homes. There have also been more than 300 aftershocks, though only two have been stronger than magnitude 4.0.
The damage to infrastructure and buildings has been estimated at around 30 trillion pesos — equivalent to ten billion US dollars, damage concentrated in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Chocó, Risaralda, Quindío and Caldas. Around 20% of the damage is infrastructural damage, affecting the energy sector, railways, and sanitation.
The epicentre of the earthquake was in Chocó, one of the country’s most impoverished areas, where the severity of impact and proportional damage have been the greatest. President Abelardo de la Espriella travelled to Chocó on Friday, promising a ‘special plan’ for Chocó seeking to bring ‘development, progress, and future,’ calling his strategy a ‘Marshall Plan’ — referring to the United States aid programme to rebuild Western Europe after World War II. Details have yet to be reported.
More than 12 countries have sent humanitarian supplies and rescue teams to Colombia, and funds have been promised by countries from the US to China, as well as by the World Bank. Citizens across the country have also organised en masse to donate food, clothes, money, and their time to civil society groups responding to the disaster.
Controversy was sparked following reports of access being granted to humanitarian teams from certain countries while others were not given permission to enter, seemingly according to ideological criteria, with right-wing governments favoured — fuelling allegations that the earthquake has been politicised by the new government.
The President has also drawn criticism for a publicity stunt in which he arrived in the earthquake-struck city of Buenaventura and distributed footballs branded with his political movement ‘Defensores de la Patria’, subsequently accused by critics of failing to act appropriately for the severity of the disaster and taking advantage of the earthquake for propaganda purposes.
🗞️ President Abelardo de la Espriella has taken centre-stage in the earthquake response, but has also been implementing new policies — many of which were promised during his campaign, including his ‘iron-fist’ security approach.
Military bombardments targeting camps of the guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) were carried out in the northeastern region of Catatumbo on Monday night, killing two members of the armed group.
However, the strikes also injured at least three civilians, as well as displacing several families and affecting homes. Iris Marín, Colombia’s Ombudsman, called for an investigation into the use of explosives in a residential area, asking the government to prevent harm to the civilian population.
Celebrating 1,000 subscribers (with a little thank you!) 🥂
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Aug 6
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🗞️ US military operations in Colombia have been given the go-ahead by Abelardo de la Espriella: US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the Colombian government has authorised the US to launch joint missions on Colombian territory, targeting so-called ‘narco-terrorists’.
These operations will be enabled via the 'Americas Counter Cartel Coalition’, of which Colombia became the 19th member on Wednesday. Hegseth claimed that Colombia’s President had requested the joint military action with the US: opposition leader Iván Cepeda called the plan ‘the delivery of our sovereignty to the United States.’
Despite this revival of a military collaboration being dubbed a second ‘Plan Patriota’, the Colombian constitution does require that Congress is consulted before foreign troops are allowed onto Colombian territory.
On Saturday, Colombia’s new president had his first conversation with US President Donald Trump since his inauguration last week — a ten-minute phone call in which they discussed the earthquake. During the call, De la Espriella also requested the suspension of tariffs on Colombian goods as a form of earthquake relief.
🗞️ Last week’s official declarations about the sovereignty of Western Sahara were followed this week with more foreign policy reversals and major diplomatic shifts, announced by Colombia’s new government hours after the earthquake hit.
On Monday afternoon, foreign minister Omar Bula officially recognised what he called ‘Israel’s sovereignty’ over the Golan Heights area — a part of Syria which Israel has occupied for several decades, saying that Colombia considers the area to be ‘an essential component’ of Israel’s ‘national defence’. Only one country apart from Colombia has publicly recognised Israel’s claim to this land: the United States in 2019.
Syria responded with a statement ‘strongly condemning’ the declarations, calling them a ‘flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations’. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey also condemned the statements.
This declaration breaks a long-held international consensus on the issue, based on the principle that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, enshrined in the UN Charter. The United Nations continues to hold that the Golan Heights is occupied Syrian territory.
This is one of several measures reportedly agreed upon weeks ago between Israel and the incoming government during a meeting in Washington. Other agreements include
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