Wednesday, September 9th 2026 - 09:33 UTC
“I do not recall seeing a president walking among the dead and feeling proud of those deaths,” Ombudsman Iris Marín said
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.
