The court in charge of judging the crimes of the conflict in Colombia announced on Tuesday that it would investigate the enlistment of the Farc, the guerrilla group dissolved after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016, of 18,667 minors during their armed uprising. This lasted for five decades.
The Special Court for Peace (JEP) clarified that at least 5,691 of these minors were under 14 years of age, which violates international humanitarian law. “The FARC systematically recruited and used children of this age group to carry out the armed conflict, against their own commitments,” the JEP said in a statement.
Twenty-six ex-combatants of the Marxist guerrilla will be heard by the JEP to give their “version”. The judges will then decide to charge them with enforced disappearance, murder and sexual violence.
Former actors in 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 in prison in traditional courts.