“It was an operation in opposition to narco-terrorists who plan assaults in opposition to the inhabitants,” Protection Minister Diego Molano mentioned in an interview with W Radio.

The assault comes as President Iván Duque’s administration has come below hearth from New York-based Human Rights Watch and rural neighborhood organizations for its failure to finish drug-trafficking gang-led violence in opposition to civilians. In 2020, 133 neighborhood leaders had been killed, up from 108 in 2019, mentioned a United Nations workforce working in Colombia on the circumstances.

The protection minister declined to say what number of of those that died had been youngsters till health workers accomplished an investigation into the our bodies that had been discovered. However he admitted in an interview with Semana journal that a kind of killed was a 16-year-old lady and that two of the 5 individuals captured throughout the navy operation had been additionally minors. The 2 youngsters at the moment are within the care of Youngster Safety Providers, an company headed by Mr. Molano.

The lawyer normal’s workplace, which is investigating the identities of these killed, declined to remark. In 2019, then protection minister Guillermo Botero was pressured to resign after eight youngsters aged 12 to 17 had been killed in an analogous strike.

Mr Molano mentioned a legal group led by Miguel Botache, additionally recognized by his pseudonym Gentil Duarte, is forcibly recruiting youngsters and turning them into fighters.

“Who’s accountable for recruiting these younger individuals and changing them into struggle machines? It’s these organizations, not the nationwide military, ”he mentioned.

In one other interview, Mr. Molano instructed Semana that “though they’re younger individuals, they’re a risk to society”. However he added on this interview and others that navy intelligence didn’t know that youngsters had been within the camp earlier than the assault.

Political opponents accuse Mr. Molano of justifying the killings of kid troopers.

“The struggle machine is the one which kills youngsters, minister,” Senator Iván Cepeda, a left-wing lawmaker, mentioned in a Twitter put up.

Mr. Molano couldn’t be reached for remark. However in an interview with the Wall Avenue Journal final week, he mentioned the navy is dedicated to destroying 5 legal organizations, together with the Nationwide Liberation Military insurgent group and the Gulf Clan, and eradicating them. drug cultures.

“They’re narco-criminals, who kill neighborhood leaders, who commit mass killings,” he mentioned, describing the violence that’s rampant in elements of rural Colombia.

Amongst these organizations is Mr. Botache’s group. They’d been members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. However when the FARC, because it was referred to as, made peace with the state in 2016, its fighters remained within the jungle, dealing medication.

Simply earlier than leaving the FARC, a number of of Mr. Botache’s lieutenants instructed the Journal throughout a go to to a jungle camp that they had been reluctant to surrender the management that they had gathered over coca-producing farmers. , the uncooked ingredient in cocaine.

“I do not assume I’ll go away the countryside,” mentioned certainly one of them, Ivan Lozada. “We have now by no means had a lot energy.”

Write to Juan Forero at [email protected] and Kejal Vyas at [email protected]