The tribunal responsible for judging the crimes of the conflict in Colombia announced on Tuesday that it would investigate the enlistment by the Farc, the guerrillas dissolved after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016, of 18,667 minors during its armed uprising. This lasted for five decades.
The Special Court for Peace (JEP) clarified that at least 5,691 of these minors were under the age of 14, which violates international humanitarian law. “The Farc systematically recruited and used children of this age group to carry out the armed conflict, contrary to their own commitments,” the JEP said in a statement.
Twenty-six veterans heard
Twenty-six ex-combatants of the Marxist guerrillas will be heard by the JEP to give their “version”. The judges will then decide to indict them with enforced disappearance, murder and sexual violence.
The former actors of the armed conflict, who appear before this justice of the peace, must tell the truth about their crimes and compensate the victims, in exchange for alternative sentences to prison. Otherwise, they can face up to twenty years imprisonment in traditional courts.