Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, asked this Friday to investigate and attend to the victims of the alleged rapes of indigenous minors at the hands of local and US military in the Amazon (south), after scandal that unleashed a journalistic investigation.
“I have requested that a commission from the ICBF (Colombian Institute for Family Welfare) and the Presidency immediately go to Guaviare and address the complaints of rape of minors. This horror has been fueled by impunity for years. All investigations will be initiated, including for the omission of officials,” the president said on Twitter.
A report by Univisión Noticias revealed in December that a United States soldier, who “was living in the installations of a battalion” of the Colombian army in 2019, allegedly sexually abused and impregnated a 10-year-old Nukak indigenous little girl in San José del Guaviare. , a city nestled in the Colombian Amazon.
Supported by community sources and state entities, the US news report denounced a “growing phenomenon of the rape of indigenous minors in the Guaviare region, induced by men, mostly older whites and some of them military.”
The prosecutor’s office is investigating complaints against Colombian and “American” soldiers for abuse of Nukak children, prosecutor Isabel León acknowledged to Univisión.
The US Embassy in Bogotá said in a statement that its troops were not deployed in Guaviare in 2019, when the abuse allegedly occurred.
According to President Petro, there are “118 members of the Colombian army” who are being investigated for these cases.
Traditionally nomadic, the Nukak have been displaced from their territories in the midst of the Colombian armed conflict since the end of the 20th century. Today they survive in precarious settlements in rural areas and roam the streets of the city begging for alms.
Many children and adolescents of the ethnic group end up in the hands of networks that offer them food in exchange for sexual favors and some of them are submerged in drug addiction, according to NGOs.
