Colombia’s human rights ombudsman challenges De la Espriella over display of bodies — MercoPress

Colombia’s human rights ombudsman challenges De la Espriella over display of bodies

Colombia’s human rights ombudsman has challenged President Abelardo de la Espriella over the release of footage showing him walking among the bodies of suspected FARC dissident fighters killed in a military operation, in the first public disagreement between the rights body and the government that took office on August 7.

In a statement released Sunday, Ombudsman Iris Marín said the state and the government cannot enter into a competition to show which side is crueler, nor contend with armed groups over which instills more fear. She asked that the dead be “respected and treated with dignity” and said it should not become normal for bodies to form part of the staging of a public address. “I do not recall seeing a president walking among the dead and feeling proud of those deaths,” she added. She specified that confronting illegal armed groups militarily and protecting the population is a constitutional duty.

The footage came from Operation Azarías, carried out in late August in Miraflores, Guaviare department, against the Carolina Ramírez Front, a structure said to operate under the command of the man known as Iván Mordisco. The official tally reported 23 killed, six captured and two minors recovered alive and placed under the protection of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, along with seized weapons and explosives. According to the forensic institute, two of the dead were minors.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara responded that same evening that the government considers the statement “a sad mistake” for equating the state with criminal organizations, and described the ombudsman’s office as an institutional ally whose mandate the executive backs. Marín thanked him for the tone of the message and repeated her call for the government to reflect on how it communicates operational results, while noting that the office’s early warnings have already flagged the use of drones, recruitment and the territorial expansion of armed groups. The president reiterated on social media that his responsibility is to fight those he considers terrorists and rejected the criticism.

It was not an isolated episode. The following Friday, De la Espriella presented four covered bodies to reporters, the result of a police operation in Riohacha against the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, in which one of its leaders was killed.

Marín also warned about an unofficial website that keeps a tally of people captured or killed in operations ordered by the current government, and recalled the precedent of the so-called “false positives”: civilians murdered by soldiers and presented as combat deaths in order to obtain benefits from their superiors.

The debate comes amid a parallel judicial controversy. A court ordered the presidency, the defense ministry and the armed forces to refrain from air strikes where there is evidence that children recruited by those structures are present. The measure does not ban all bombings. The ombudsman’s office recorded 1,173 cases of minors affected by forced recruitment between 2024 and July 31, 2026.

The president, elected in part on a promise of a hard line on security, has defended his security policy and released a performance tally that includes 14,914 arrests and 49,379 kilos of narcotics seized since he took office.