Three minors were among ten people killed in a Colombian military air strike on August 27 in the southern Guaviare department, authorities confirmed, as newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella intensifies a hardline campaign against cocaine-trafficking armed groups. The National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences identified two of the victims as 15 years old and one as 16. A forensic source also indicated that a fourth minor may have been among the dead, though this has not been officially confirmed. The operation was the deadliest single strike since de la Espriella took office earlier in August.

The victims allegedly belonged to a dissident faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — known by its Spanish acronym FARC — which rejected a landmark 2016 peace agreement and has continued armed operations funded by drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion. The faction is led by a commander known as Iván Mordisco and is among the largest outlawed armed groups in the country. A separate strike on Monday in the same region killed 20 additional alleged guerrillas, according to the president, who also announced that soldiers had killed a key dissident leader known as