Colombia

At least one person is confirmed dead while dozens have been pulled alive from the wreckage of a Colombian air force plane that crashed on the border with Peru.

March 23 (UPI) — A Colombian Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed Monday in the southern department of Putumayo while transporting military personnel, with the number of casualties still unknown, authorities said.

Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed the accident and said the cause remains under investigation. Initial reports indicate the aircraft was carrying about 100 people, including members of Colombia’s armed forces and National Police.

“Military units are already at the scene; however, the number of victims and the causes of the accident have not yet been precisely determined,” Sánchez said on X.

Gen. Carlos Silva, commander of the Colombian Aerospace Force, said the aircraft was carrying “114 passengers on board and 11 crew members.” He also said that “48 injured people have already been rescued,” though he cautioned that the figure is preliminary, France24 reported.

A witness at the crash site told local radio station La FM that several injured people had been evacuated.

“We are in a rural area where the plane went down and we are collecting the injured. About 10 to 15 people have been taken out. We are transporting them in police vehicles and local residents are helping move people on motorcycles,” the witness said.

Early reports indicate the aircraft may have experienced difficulties during takeoff and failed to gain proper altitude, according to Noticias Caracol.

The aircraft, identified as FAC 1016, was carrying troops from the Army’s 27th Jungle Brigade. The personnel were traveling from Puerto Leguízamo to Puerto Asís as part of a troop rotation, and the plane was expected to return to Bogotá.

President Gustavo Petro addressed the incident on X, expressing concern over possible casualties.

“I hope we do not have deaths in this horrific accident that should not have happened,” Petro said.

He added that his administration has sought to modernize the military’s equipment but has faced bureaucratic obstacles.

“If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed,” he said.

Petro also said his government has worked to modernize the country’s strategic air fleet and has requested the immediate purchase of helicopters and transport aircraft to expand troop mobility, particularly in regions affected by the grounding of Russian-made helicopters.

He said, contrary to some media reports, the military has been losing operational capacity for more than 15 years and that his administration is committed to fully modernizing its equipment.

Latin American leaders met at the 10th Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit in Bogota on Saturday where Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an immediate Middle East ceasefire to prevent a global economic crisis and ‘potential world war’.

Francia Marquez called for stronger Latin America–Africa ties to boost growth and challenge colonial legacies.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has been named in two separate criminal investigations led by prosecutors in the United States.

The New York Times was the first to report the existence of the two probes on Friday, citing sources familiar with the proceedings.

Media reports indicate that Petro is not personally the target of the investigations, which focus on drug-smuggling in Latin America.

But according to the Times, US attorneys in Brooklyn and Manhattan are looking into whether Petro met with drug traffickers and solicited donations from them for his 2022 presidential campaign. Al Jazeera has not independently verified the Times report.

By Friday afternoon, Petro had issued a statement denying the claims, which threaten to reopen the rift between the US and Colombia.

“In Colombia, there is not a single investigation into my relationship with drug traffickers, for one simple reason: I have never in my life spoken with a drug trafficker,” Petro wrote on the social media platform X.

He added that he told campaign managers to never accept donations from bankers or drug traffickers.

The investigations in the US, he argued, would ultimately exonerate him, and he blamed Colombia’s right-wing opposition for stirring controversy.

“So, the proceedings in the US will help me to dismantle the accusations of the Colombian far right, which is indeed closely linked to Colombian drug traffickers,” Petro said.

Petro has not been charged with any crimes, and the investigations are in their initial stages, according to the Times.

But experts say the timing of the report is significant, as it comes barely two and a half months before Colombia is set to hold a closely watched presidential election on May 31.

“If this would have happened a week before the first round, it would be election interference,” Sergio Guzman, director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a security think tank, told Al Jazeera.

“This seems to be more of a warning that shows how the US could influence the outcome of the election.”

Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, is limited to a single term in office, but the election is likely to be a referendum on his four years in office.

It will also be a test for Petro’s Historic Pact coalition, whose candidate, Ivan Cepeda, is currently leading in the polls.

But United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to boost the prospects of right-wing candidates in Latin America. He and Petro have been at loggerheads since Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Their feud came to a head in January after the US attacked Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolas Maduro.

Shortly afterwards, a reporter asked if the US would take military action against Colombia. Trump replied: “It sounds good to me.”

To cool tensions, Trump and Petro held a call afterwards and agreed to meet.

Petro then visited the White House in early February to mend his often-combative relationship with Trump. While there, the Colombian delegation interacted with their counterparts, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, a longtime critic of Petro’s government, was also in attendance. Guzman believes the senator’s presence was significant.

“We don’t have a lot of straightforward answers about what were the commitments during that meeting, but Bernie Moreno did say that he wanted Petro not to be as involved in elections,” Guzman told Al Jazeera.

“And guess what? Petro is fully involved in the elections.”

The meeting also addressed collaborative efforts to combat drug trafficking, an issue core to Trump’s foreign policy.

Both presidents walked away from the meeting in good spirits, with Petro sharing a photo signed by Trump that read, “Gustavo – a great honor. I love Colombia.”

But Petro and Trump have long been at odds over how to tamp down on narcotics smuggling.

Colombia, the region’s largest producer of cocaine, has been criticised by the Trump administration for what it sees as soft-on-crime policies, including negotiations with armed groups.

Petro, meanwhile, has denounced the US for its lethal tactics, calling them tantamount to murder.

The US, for instance, has bombed at least 46 alleged drug boats and vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Some of the 159 people killed were Colombian citizens.

The US has also floated the idea of conducting military attacks in Latin America against suspected drug traffickers, and it recently began joint operations against gangs in Ecuador, Colombia’s neighbour.

Analysts say actions like these have Latin American leaders on edge.

Trump’s aggressive manoeuvres suggest that the US president is willing to jeopardise “the sovereignty and peace of every nation” in his campaign against illicit drugs, according to Rodrigo Pombo Cajiao, a constitutional law professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.

Pombo Cajaio pointed to the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3. Maduro was a longtime adversary of Trump, and he is currently being held in prison in New York on drug-related charges.

“Every political leader in the region has been put on notice” after that abduction, Pombo Cajiao said.

“As the world’s leading producer of cocaine, Colombia found itself at high risk of judicial prosecution” from the US, he added.

Currently, Petro’s Historic Pact is leading May’s presidential race. A GAD3 poll released this week suggested Cepeda is ahead in the polls with 35 percent voter approval, ahead of far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who had 21 percent.

A deaf 6-year-old boy snatched by immigration agents from Northern California and deported to Colombia this month needs to be returned to the U.S. immediately or he could die, a lawyer representing the child said Wednesday.

Attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker said the boy, Joseph Lodano Rodriguez, was “at risk every day that he is not getting his treatments.” The child has a cochlear implant that requires the same routine maintenance and cleaning he was receiving stateside but may not get in Colombia.

“Joseph is at immense risk for his life if he does not continue the treatment that he was receiving in the United States,” De Bremaeker said at a virtual news conference hosted by California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

“He is at risk of infection, he is at risk of meningitis, he is at risk of death if he is not given the proper care for his surgical implants.”

Joseph, his 28-year-old mother, Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez, and another son, 5, were detained by federal agents on March 3 while attending an immigration meeting and deported shortly after.

Rodriguez Gutierrez traveled to the United States in 2022 seeking asylum from domestic violence and lived in Hayward. She was told in the run up to the March 3 meeting that she needed to bring her two children for a routine check-in to update the photos Immigration and Customs Enforcement had of them.

Shortly after arriving, ICE agents “tried to force her to sign a document without explanation, and then pushed the family into a vehicle to be put on a flight to a faraway detention facility, “ De Bremaeker told The Times earlier.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions sent Wednesday after office hours but has consistently said that Rodriguez Gutierrez was “an illegal alien from Colombia” who “illegally entered the United States in 2022.”

She was issued a removal order on Nov. 25, 2024, according to DHS.

Thurmond, the superintendent, called on the public to lobby Congress and the Trump administration “to return Joseph so he can continue his studies.”

Thurmond showed a 40-second clip of Joseph and his family at a Colombian facility for the deaf.

The child appeared to struggle communicating with his sibling and mother, while his brother repeatedly tried to give directions to him in Spanish with little avail.

Joseph’s only language is American Sign Language, Thurmond said. Joseph was studying at the state-funded Fremont’s California School for the Deaf.

“Joseph is struggling,” Thurmond said. “He does not have the ability to communicate with anyone and in many ways, he can barely communicate with his mom. Like Joseph’s mom, Lesly was just beginning to learn American Sign Language.”

Both California senators — Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff — along with state Democratic congressional members Eric Swalwell, Nanette Barragán, Zoe Lofgren, Kevin Mullin and Lateefah Simon called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to investigate the deportation.

The group is also calling on both government agencies to return the family to the U.S. through the process of humanitarian parole. That move would allow Joseph to re-enroll in school and receive specialized care.

Celena Ponce, founder of Hands United, a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding deaf immigrant children and families, said her group was trying to connect the family with the deaf community and services, like interpreters, in Colombia.

She said, however, that Joseph and his family face several challenges. The first hurdle if he ends up staying in Colombia, is that he and his mother will have to learn Colombian sign language, which differs from American sign language.

Ponce added that Joseph also suffered language deprivation, meaning he is delayed in comparison to other 6-year-olds who are hearing.

“Because Colombia does not have residential schools similar to what California has, the ability to be fully immersed in language is not present,” she said.

Whatever gains he made at the California School for the Deaf would likely end, she said.

Times staff writers Clara Harter and Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.

Mérida, March 16, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan and Colombian high-level delegations met at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas on Friday, March 13, to advance a strategic roadmap for binational integration. 

The summit, which focused on bilateral trade, energy, and security, culminated in the announcement of Venezuela’s first-ever export of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to its western neighbor.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez led the Venezuelan delegation in the talks, overseeing a satellite broadcast of the first trucks from state oil company PDVSA carrying butane gas across the Simón Bolívar International Bridge from Táchira to Norte de Santander.

“This is the first step… the first LPG export from Venezuela to Colombia,” Rodríguez stated to reporters, characterizing the shipment as a symbol of the “Bolivarian spirit” of integration.

Beyond the immediate truck shipments, officials announced plans to revitalize the Antonio Ricaurte transnational gas pipeline. The project aims to facilitate the direct export of Venezuelan natural gas to Colombian markets, a move described by both governments as essential for regional energy security. 

However, Colombian President Gustavo Petro noted via social media that full interconnection remains contingent on the lifting of US sanctions given the need for infrastructure repair works. For her part, Rodríguez reiterated calls for the Trump administration to remove unilateral coercive measures against the Caribbean nation.

“Unilateral coercive measures against the Venezuelan people affect the peoples of Latin America,” she said.

The 225-kilometer Ricaurte pipeline was completed in 2007 and was initially used for Colombian gas shipments to Venezuela. Plans to reverse the flow beginning in 2016 were hampered by US sanctions.

The Caracas summit also saw delegations review the recovery of commercial ties since the reopening of the border in 2022. According to figures shared during the meeting, binational trade has grown from US $220 million in 2020 to over $1.135 billion at the close of 2024.

To sustain this momentum, officials announced that the Administrative Commission of the Trade Agreement will be formally installed on March 18. The agency’s agenda will focus on achieving “zero tariffs” for specific goods and promoting binational tourism. 

The Colombian delegation also emphasized the importance of the Monómeros petrochemical company, noting that its operation at full capacity is vital for Colombia’s food security. The agrochemical producer was placed under the control of the US-backed Venezuelan opposition by former Colombian President Iván Duque. The company was plagued by corruption scandals before being returned to the Venezuelan government’s control in 2022.

Monómeros, a major supplier of fertilizer for Colombian potato, coffee and palm oil producers, remains restricted by US sanctions, with Venezuelan plans to sell the company to the Colombian state contingent on US Treasury approval.

The two countries’ delegations likewise addressed joint security concerns during the Friday talks, activating an immediate coordination mechanism for sharing military and police intelligence. 

The stated objective is to dismantle drug trafficking networks and counter irregular armed groups operating along the 2,200-kilometer border region. Petro described the goal as a the creation of a “Binational Zone of Peace,” emphasizing the importance of integrated military efforts to protect the territory.

The Caracas summit took place following the suspension of a planned meeting between Rodríguez and Petro at the Atanasio Girardot Bridge on Friday due to “force majeure.” Colombian outlets reported security concerns but offered no specifics.

Despite the setback, the Venezuelan government reaffirmed that the presidential invitation remains open and that the working groups at Miraflores had secured the “roadmap” for the coming months. 

Colombian Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio, who led the Petro government’s delegation, praised the Caracas summit as a “great success” and vowed that “no one can split the Colombian and Venezuelan peoples” due to their shared history.

In the wake of the meeting with Colombian counterparts, Rodríguez announced the appointment of Admiral Orlando Maniglia as the new Venezuelan Ambassador to Colombia. Maniglia, who previously served as Minister of Defense and Ambassador to Germany, will replace Carlos Eduardo Martínez.

The two countries’ integration agenda will continue with the meeting of a bilateral commission on April 23 and 24 in Maracaibo, Zulia state. The upcoming summit will focus on migration, citizen rights, and the facilitation of free circulation across the border.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.