EUAA COI Report. Country Focus

The report covers the period between 2021 and the first months of President Gustavo Petro's newly elected administration which was inaugurated in August 2022. It provides updated information that supports decision-makers in assessing international protection claims made by Colombian nationals. The report focuses extensively on the impact the post-FARC security landscape on civilians and individual profiles relevant for international protection.

The report is structured to facilitate the consideration and logical assessment of claims for international protection, providing a general introduction to the country, followed by key issues of importance on the conflict, civilian impacts, state protection, and humanitarian issues:

Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the country’s demographics and main characteristics.

Chapter 2 provides background information on the conflict in Colombia and political developments as of 2022, as well as background descriptions of the state’s structure, such as the legislative, executive, and judicial branches and the security forces. It also provides a general snapshot of the humanitarian situation.

Chapter 3 gives an overview of the implementation of the 2016 peace accord with the FARC-EP and current developments with President Petro’s ‘Total Peace’ initiative.

Chapter 4 considers the dynamics of violence and conflict from 2012 to 2021 to cover the period of the peace accord and subsequent developments after FARC-EP’s demobilisation, as well as developments and trends in 2022, with a focus on the election of President Petro in summer 2022.

Chapter 5 focuses on illegal armed groups, including their territorial presence, characteristics, modus operandi, and interaction dynamics, as well as information on the willingness and ability of such groups to track targets in Colombian territory.

Chapter 6 provides an overview of the types of human rights violations and civilian impacts that occur in the conflict and that affect the population, with an emphasis on recent years.

Chapter 7 covers selected profiles of civilians who are often targeted by armed and criminal groups, such as social leaders, former FARC combatants, extortion victims, as well as vulnerable groups such as women, children, youth, and LGBTIQ.

Chapter 8 deals with the state’s capacity to provide protection and justice for crimes against civilians, including protection from targeted violence through institutions such as the National Protection Unit.

The reference period for this report is January 2021 to 7 November 2022, but also includes general information to provide background and contextual information to the current situation.

This report was finalised on 21 November 2022, however, on 28 November 2022, Indepaz, a Colombian think tank that studies the conflict and has been used as a source in this report, released a new report on armed groups covering 2021 and the first half of 2022. In an effort to ensure currency, some selected information was included in this new report just prior to its publication by EUAA.

This report was drafted by the EUAA. The following national asylum and migration departments reviewed this report:

- Belgium, Centre for Documentation and Research (Cedoca), Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS);

- Sweden, Unit for Migration Analysis, Swedish Migration Agency.

The report was also reviewed by external reviewer Jeremy McDermott, an expert in organised crime and armed groups in Colombia, who is the co-director of the Colombia-based thinktank InSight Crime.

The report was drafted and reviewed in line with the EUAA COI Report Methodology (2019) and the EUAA COI Writing and Referencing Style Guide (2019).