News Summaries in January 2025
“More Than 80 People Killed in Colombia as Truce Between Rebel Groups Collapses,” The Guardian, Jan. 19, 2025 [Posted out of chronological order to catch up to an earlier story.] A fragile truce between rebel groups struggling for control of the cocaine trade ended in violence that took the lives of more than 80 people in northeastern Colombia near the Venezuelan border. At least 5,000 people were forced to leave their homes in the violence between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). School has been called off indefinitely with classrooms converted into emergency shelters for families fleeing their homes, a Colombian official said. Twenty people including 10 women have been kidnapped. "We are seeing innumerable familes who have lost their children and even sadder still, children who have lost their parents," said the local mayor in the municipality of Tibú. "Kids and the elderly are c...