By Sergio Acero and Camilo Castillo, EL TIEMPO, March 23, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Since 2016, when the Peace Agreement was signed, 93 people have been killed by stepping on land mines.
Professional soldier Vladimir Golu Solarte walks slowly away while not losing sight of the stake that marks the position of the mine that, just a moment ago, he had pulled out of the soil that surrounded it. In the middle of the thick jungle, one false step could mean the loss of one of his extremities or even his life, so doing this work with precision is key. It’s only when he’s at a safe distance, far enough to avoid the shock wave, that he will detonate the charge that’s under the device.
The mine that the soldiers from the Humanitarian Battalion of De-mining Engineers No. 5 just detonated in Montañita, Caquetá Department, is just one of the many that the illegal armed groups are continuing to plant all over the country and are continuing to cause death to their victims. Just in 2024, according to data from Integrated Action Against Land Mines (Aicma), 302 land mines were destroyed in Colombia, 103 without exploding them, as well as 137 improvised explosives, totaling 542 explosive devices neutralized.
Since the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016, the number of explosive devices destroyed has risen to 3,590 in a period of six years. And, far from being a problem of the past, land mines continue to be part of the daily lives of thousands of communities in remote regions. According to the Unmas (United Nations Activities Related to Mines) annual report, the number of people in the country at risk from explosive devices has increased consistently since 2021. That year, in the midst of the pandemic, the number was 268,319 people; in 2024, the number was more than twice that, climbing to 607,910 people in danger.
Although the number of victims has diminished since 2020, and the country is far from the 1,224 cases of death or injury registered in 2006—the year with the most such incidents—the figures are still alarming. After reaching the levels of 2017, when after the signing of the Peace Agreement only 59 episodes were reported, it has seemed to be more and more difficult. In 2024, for example, there were 104 victims, four of which lost their lives. And so far in 2025, according to Aicma data, 28 incidents have already been registered, one of which was fatal.
One of the people that fell on a land mine and lived to tell about it was Arley Cardozo, a 23-year-old soldier from Florencia, Caquetá. After only a little more than a month, on February 20, his unit was carrying out an operation to destroy some drug traffickers’ laboratories in the Municipality of Tibú in Norte de Santander Department when they had to face combat with an illegal armed group. It was 8:30 in the morning when he and some other soldiers were moving forward on a trail, and he stepped on a mine. What he saw at that instant was an image that he still can’t get out of his mind. “When they looked at me, I didn’t have a foot anymore. I almost bled to death because it even hit one of my testicles. ( . . . ) At that moment I could only think of my brother and my father,” he recounts.
What happened next is difficult to describe for this soldier: the impact of the mine, the clatter of the bullets, and the shouts of his comrades are all mixed up in his mind. However, there is one moment he’ll never forget: the surgery when they amputated all that was left of his right leg. “They operated on me on the 22d in Cucutá. They cut up my leg that day,” he recounts bitterly.
Since they began recording the number of victims of the land mines and unexploded munitions, 7,434 members of the Armed Forces have been injured, which represents 59% of all the documented cases. Of those, 1,460 have been fatalities under different circumstances, with Antioquia (219), Meta (157), Tolima (142), Arauca (137), and Caquetá (98) being the departments most affected.
Several of the injured arrive at the “Soldier José María Hernández” Recovery Battalion, attached to the Logistics Brigade No. 1, where they are received by Lt. Colonel Jairo Alberto Álvarez Carvajal. He has a firm character, but with a notable ability to inspire courage in the young soldiers who are facing amputations. Nobody understands their pain better than Álvarez Carvajal. On May 13, 2009, in a jungle area of San Vicente del Caguán, also in Caquetá, a land mine tore off his left leg.
“It’s a miracle of God that I’m alive. This prosthesis represents a rebirth, coming back to life, because that day could have been the last day of my life,” he says while he looks attentively at the first prosthesis he had to use in order to be able to walk, the same one that was devised for him to use. Carrying out his responsibilities, Álvarez works together with a multidisciplinary team to support the soldiers who have been victims of what he describes as the “perfect soldier”. “He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t get sick, and he is always vigilant. He makes no distinction for color, sex, rank, or condition. He only waits for the moment to activate and attack,” he adds.
In the Recovery Battalion, the Lt. Colonel provides the young soldiers with medical and psychological attention, and opportunities for education, and he offers them sports as a key tool for their recuperation.
A torment for civilians
In the 5,106 remaining episodes registered by Aicma, the victims have been civilians. One of them is Alonso Ramírez Guaca, a 60-year-old man born in Florencia. On May 24, 1994, in the town (vereda) of Las Illusiones in the Municipality of Cartagena del Chairá, Alonso had an 11 a.m. date to play a game of fútbol. At halftime he walked a few meters to drink some water from a nearby fountain, and then he walked another 20 meters to urinate, without imagining that in seconds his life would change forever.
“That’s where the land mine exploded; I myself activated it and I don’t remember anything else. I woke up around 30 days later and I found myself in a bed. I was being cared for by an armed group. I didn’t have anybody to give me first aid at the time of the accident, I didn’t have any friends, just the people I was playing fútbol with that day. I was a guy that harvested coca leaves,” recounts Alonso Ramírez Guaca.
Even though 30 years have gone by since that episode, the fear of falling into an area contaminated by explosives is always smoldering for many communities in Caquetá. In that Department, the Humanitarian De-mining Brigade continues operations to eliminate mines, with the objective of returning security to a territory that has been an epicenter of violence for decades.
That Department, particularly in the Municipalities of Cartagena del Chairá and Solano, is the scenario of a bloody war between the “Jhon Linares” Front of the “Jorge Suárez Briceño” Bloc commanded by Alexander Díaz Mendoza, alias Calarcá, and the Amazonas Manuel Marulanda Vélez Bloc led by Néstor Gregorio Vera, alias “Mordisco”.
According to Early Alert 001 of 2015 by the Ombudsman’s Office, in the midst of the dispute for control of the territory, those two groups have turned to using land mines, unexploded munitions, and improvised explosives, putting the communities in the region at risk.
One of the members of the Humanitarian De-mining Brigade, who not only has to lead them in the presence of the mines, but also under the constant threat of the armed groups, is the soldier, Golu Solarte. He has been with this unit for nine years and has lost count of the number of mines he has helped de-activate. He was born in Santander de Quilichao in Cauca Department. Ever since he was very young, he saw clearly that he wanted to be a soldier, although he never imagined he would end up in a unit that carried no weapons and whose protective equipment is a heavy blue outfit that weighs eight kilos.
The nervousness and fear he felt in his first operation in Puerto Rico, Caquetá has disappeared now. However, the risk in the areas where he operates goes much farther than the land mines. “I’ve had comrades bitten by snakes, that have had heat strokes, or lacking that, they get bitten by wasps while they’re cutting down the vegetation. Those are common situations,” explains Golu Solarte, the soldier who has learned how to lead right along with the dangers that stalk every mission.
The danger persists
While the soldiers risk their lives to eliminate the land mines hidden in the jungle, the campesinos continue struggling to recover their land and work it in peace, as in the case of María Eunice Cuesta Mora, who has faced at first hand the consequences of the violence in the countryside.
Sra. María Eunice doesn’t know any life beyond what the countryside offers. After her parents left Viotá, in Cundinamarca Department, to settle in the Municipality of Montañita, Caquetá, her daily life has revolved around agriculture and, since 2008, raising cacao. Now she owns a farm of 22 hectares, and her future not only depends on fluctuations in the price of cacao, but also on the violence that has marked this region for years.
This 59-year-old woman remembers that just a few months after she bought the farm in 2002, the FARC guerrillas attacked the region. They not only threw bombs, they also installed land mines around the farmers’ properties. That converted the countryside into a death trap for anybody that was trying to work the land. “In 2003, there were attacks coming from El Cinco. They even, right here, they blew up my neighbor’s house. The problem is that, with leaving the land mines here, they have hit a number of animals. We panicked when we saw that going on because we hadn’t known that everything had been mined,” she says.
After that, for María Eunice, seeing the members of the Humanitarian De-mining Brigade had a special significance. “Now we can walk around in peace. There are land mines, but we don’t have to go back to hearing about the damage,” she says with relief, even though she knows that the danger has not completely disappeared.
As Lt. Colonel Julián Alexis Morales Herrera, Commander of the Humanitarian De-mining Engineers Brigade No. 5, reports, Caquetá presents “pretty special” complexities for de-mining. To the presence of armed groups in the area, the inclement weather has to be added, which makes the operations even more difficult.
Therefore, the land mine clearance work in this region requires not just precision and patience, but also a strategy that’s adapted to the geographic conditions and also to the population. “We don’t have weapons; we don’t have anything to do with the military operations. We’re dedicated solely and exclusively to this humanitarian part. We help improve quality of life with programs, with social activities, with delivering eco-efficient stoves to families, and with the reconstruction of roads when that’s needed,” stated the officer.
With regard to the technical side of de-mining, Lt. Colonel Morales Herrera explains that in addition to the method in the manual, there are two additional focuses for the detection and elimination of land mines. The first is the use of Canine Detectors of Mines (CDM). Their training permits them to identify the hidden explosives in the ground. The second is the mechanical part of de-mining that is done with specialized machinery. “We rely on equipment like minesweepers, brush cutters, generators, drones, and other tools that allow us to operate on lands that are hard to get to and so continue our work of de-mining,” he detailed.
The work of these Brigades and those who carry out humanitarian de-mining in the department has allowed the cleaning out of 1,720,978 square meters since 2004, the year in which the official register commenced. At the national level, the annual analysis by Aicma reveals an increase of 42.2% in the amount of area cleared between 2020 and 2023, increasing from 1,425,570 to 2,027,811 square meters. Nevertheless, the challenges continue.
“Up to now, the funds we have are limited. They’re a help to us in maintaining our humanitarian de-mining operations in the department, but it’s not as much as we’d like to have. In addition, as much as I’d like to be working in all of the municipalities in the department, I can’t, because of the security conditions,” he concludes.