Report Says 220,000 Have Died During Colombia's 54-Year War
Most were civilians
Almost a quarter of a million Colombians have been killed in the country's internal conflict since 1958, most of them civilians, a government-funded report has said.
The much-anticipated report was produced by the National Centre of Historical Memory, which was created under a 2011 law designed to indemnify victims of the conflict and return stolen land. The law prefaced peace talks now being held in Cuba with the Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC, the country's main leftist rebel group.
The 434-page report, titled "Enough Already: Memories of War and Dignity," says most of the killings occurred after far-right militias backed by ranchers and cocaine traffickers emerged in the 1980s to counter the FARC and other leftist rebels.
The report said that more than four out of every five victims were civilian noncombatants.