The death of at least seven minors as a result of the bombing of military forces in the village of Itella, in the municipality of Calamar in Guaviare, forced President Gustavo Pietro to provide clarifications and return to the past, when he was a senator. In 2019, in the midst of a military bombardment by the government of Iván Duque in Caqueta, in which seven minors were also killed, and for which the then Defense Secretary’s chief, then Congressman Petro, was tasked with trill“If the government knew there were minors there before the bombing in Caqueta, then we are facing a war crime, that is, a crime against humanity.” Six years later, the current president claims he did not know there were minors. But the lack of knowledge of the presence of minors contradicts extensive evidence indicating the presence of boys and girls by the Central General Staff (EMC) led by Ivan Mordesco in the Colombian Amazon. These numbers show that the risk of minors dying in a bombing of this group was not only expected, but was high.
Before the Ombudsman’s Office confirmed the ages of some of the deceased on Saturday, Petro and his Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez had already acknowledged the possibility that there were minors among them, especially since they knew that three had been rescued after the bombing. Two days before the ombudsman’s statement, Pietro told a police ceremony that bombings “always involve a risk” and that “without proper knowledge of the area and if intelligence fails, they could fall on minors, and this is the great risk that only the president bears.” then, trill This case was different from the Duque bombing because “we did not hide information,” “the information was incomplete and risky,” and because, he said, if they had not bombed, “150 well-armed men could have killed 20 soldiers who were at the front.” He said in his final explanation that, “In Mordesco’s columns, they only had fighters, and we did not know of the presence of minors.”
The evidence contradicts them. Although both EMC and Calarca dissidents have been recruiting children for years, since January 2025, when they began being publicly confronted in Guaviare, there are several indications that Mordescu is bringing in minors from other regions of the country to bolster his forces. That month, during fighting between dissidents in the village of Miravalle, in the municipality of Calamar – the same village where the bombing occurred – 16 people were killed, including six minors, all on Mordesco’s side. Some of these minors came from Cauca, where Western Bloc commander Jacobo Arenas, who has influence in the southwest of the country, is part of the EMC, and has been supporting the Mordesco bloc in Amazonia for months not only with weapons, but also by sending people from that province and from Nariño to Meta and Guaviare, including minors, as is also evident in the case of a 14-year-old girl recruited by his men to reinforce their units in Meta. Which was rescued in November last year on the Bogota-Villavicencio highway.
Minors arrive not only in Guaviare del Cauca or Nariño, but also from areas such as Amazonas. A high-ranking military source in the Amazon region told this newspaper that this year alone he knows of at least 15 cases of minors who left La Pedrera, in Amazonas, and were transported along the Apapurres River to Guaviare to be trained in the Mordesco ranks. In fact, Karen Smith Cubillos Mirana, a 13-year-old girl who died in that bombing, grew up in La Pedrera. The other four minors about whom information is available so far were born in Arauca, Norte de Santander, Guaviare and Putumayo.
The Ombudsman’s Office had already warned against this EMC strategy of bringing in minors from other areas in an early warning it issued in January. “In the south of Meta province, following operations carried out by the army, it has become publicly clear that dissidents under the command of Ivan Mordescu have recruited children and adolescents (children and adolescents) from Cauca,” the warning reads. “Many of the victims of this behavior were teenagers (girls). Although many operations took place in Mesetas (where there are confrontations between dissidents), it is very possible that these dynamics are present in all the high-risk areas of this province, Caqueta and Guaviare, where hostilities may occur between the two parties.” He goes even further, warning: “The speed with which child and teenage recruits are trained and immediately exposed to confrontations increases the chances that they will be killed or seriously injured in combat.” Moreover, on June 2 of this year, in response to the announcement of an armed strike by the EMC in Guaviare, which forced hundreds of people to lock themselves in their homes, he explicitly said: “There are missing persons, minors recruited and killed, and today more than 10,000 people are detained due to confrontations between dissidents led by the pseudonym Ivan Mordescu and those led by the pseudonym Calarca.”
Figures released by the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) are further evidence of Guaviare’s recruitment. Although there is usually an under-registration of this issue, and while in 2024 the ICBF registered only two cases of children and adolescents separated from armed groups in that province, in 2025 there were 21 cases. Of these 21, eight were in Calamar, the same municipality where the bombing occurred. In fact, in April this year, the same army recaptured two minors, aged 16 and 17, there in Calamar.
According to the president, if they had not bombed the 150 well-armed guerrillas, they could have killed 20 men from the Joint Special Operations Command. In a press conference held by Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez, accompanied by the military leadership, last Tuesday, the Commander of the Military Forces, Francisco Cupides, provided more details. He did not talk about 150 fighters, but 120. He said, “Our army soldiers fought against two structures, that of Armando Ríos, under the command of the criminal pseudonym.” Jimmyand Martin Villa, alias fish“El País learned from a source that one of Pescado’s missions was to send troops to Arauca, including minors.
Cupides also points out that “these two criminal structures were seeking to confront the structures of GAOR, the Calarca faction, all with the aim of disputing the mobility corridors through which the illegal economy moves.” Then, according to Cupides, “in the early hours of Monday the 10th, in the face of an imminent attack by these structures on our soldiers and with the goal of protecting them, the Aerospace Force was requested to execute a close air support mission, a bombing maneuver.” Another military source from the Amazon region, who requested to remain anonymous, told El Pais: “It was a special forces operation on a high-value target, and in response from the bandits, 150 people gathered.”
That is, men from two fronts were together at the same point with the aim of first attacking Calarca and then attacking the 20 men of the Combined Special Operations Command (CCOES). The possibility of minors being among the 120 or 150 armed men cannot be low, especially in light of all the evidence of recruitment in the area. Moreover, this was a planned operation and involved extensive intelligence. They said in the press conference with Minister Sanchez that 30 intelligence and criminal investigation agents were involved in its implementation, “they worked for more than 530 days on a permanent basis and there they developed 12 thousand operational intelligence reports and had to prepare 25 operational tactical reports to identify precise locations.” With all that intelligence, as well as existing public information, it was expected to know that minors might be present.
Beyond that, it is also not clear why these 20 men from CCOES face such military deprivation, since since July this year, due to the escalation of conflict in the region, the government has announced the sending of 1,100 soldiers to Guaviare who are part of the 10 Rapid Deployment Force (FUDRA 10). According to this announcement, the soldiers will arrive in two phases: 700 soldiers in the first month and another 400 before the end of the year. In October, the same army announced the arrival of 240 men to reinforce Joaquín Paris’s infantry battalion, covering part of Guaviare.
However, El País learned from two military sources in the Amazon region that this bombing was carried out with these 20 men from CCOES with the aim of “protecting the operation” and under the principle of fragmentation of information, meaning that the fewer people know, the more the operational mission is protected and possible information leakage is avoided. Therefore, according to this account, the bombing was not carried out by the forces present in the area, and therefore none of the military reinforcements sent to the area intervened.
“Would it have been possible to use other methods of military operation capable of achieving the same military advantage with much less damage?” asked defender Iris Marin. Even without all the details about this process, there are other ways to respond if the idea is to find a high-value target, such as a high-precision shooter, which allows you to shoot a target from a distance, or requesting an additional special forces landing to support the twenty men on the ground.
The “high value targets” for this bombing were alias Jimmy, leader of Front 44, and alias Pescado, leader of Martin Villa. They both escaped.
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