‘They began taking my friends from school’: the children being recruited by Colombia’s armed groups
In spring last year, Ana’s* friends began to disappear. Members of an armed group had begun recruiting children in her village in Colombia’s north-west region of Norte de Santander, promising them food, money, mobile phones and motorcycles.
“They began taking all of the young people, the boys and the girls, my friends from school. I was so scared, I had to shut myself away,” says Ana, then 14.
In Colombia, armed groups are battling for control of territory vital to the drug trade, including coca fields, and illegal mining and arms routes.
In remote and marginalised rural parts of the country, communities are more vulnerable to pressure from armed groups, who are luring children away through bribes and coercion.
Documented cases of child recruitment into armed groups rose from a few dozen in 2021 to more than 600 in 2024, according to figures from a government watchdog. It is a figure experts say vastly underestimates the real toll as many families stay silent, afraid of the consequences if they speak out.
