The Latin American Report # 574

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has called on former military personnel and citizens in general not to enlist in foreign forces, specifically referencing the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) following a request from Prime Minister Kamel Idris. In recent days, reports have emerged about the high presence of Colombian mercenaries among the RSF, which fight for every square meter of Sudan against the Armed Forces loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

"Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamel Idris addresses the Colombian nation. Stop mercenary activities in Colombia. Young ex-soldiers and ex-officers, do not sell yourselves. Fight for your homeland, do not die in foreign wars," Petro stated via X, as reported by EFE. "I call upon the Colombian people and all Spanish-speaking communities to stand firm with us to end the siege on al-Fasher and stop the recruitment and sending of mercenaries to our land," Idris had stated over a week after the regular Army denounced that dozens of Colombian mercenaries had died when an Emirati aircraft carrying them was shot down in an area controlled by the RSF.

AP reports that the latter shelled a camp filled with displaced and starving people in Darfur on Saturday, killing seven children and a pregnant woman along with 23 others, as part of an effort to capture the only area still controlled by the Armed Forces in Darfur.

Both sides have been linked to crimes and abuses against civilians, with 14 million displaced so far, and counting. Colombian mercenaries have also reportedly been sighted in the Ukrainian army, just as there was significant discussion last year about the presence of Cuban mercenaries in the Russian army—a dynamic that some attempted to associate with the Cuban government, though without convincing evidence.

Ecuador

Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas doesn’t usually make headlines for massacres, but it appears to be somehow starting to suffer some of the chronic violence that plagues its western neighbors, the coastal provinces of Esmeraldas and Manabí. Once again, a pool hall served as the ideal spot for the deadly deployment of local gunmen, who, in the early hours of this Sunday, killed seven people in total in the so-called nightlife district of the capital of this tropical province.

Below I share a tweet with raw, uncensored videos showing the hitmen’s arrival amid gunfire and the resulting fatalities. The past six months were the most violent in recorded history for any half-year period, but the current one, unfortunately, shows no signs of falling behind—quite the opposite.