Budget Carrier Targets Orlando-Colombia Routes Once Flown by Spirit

Frontier Airlines will begin nonstop service from Orlando, Florida, to Medellín on December 10, 2026, to Bogotá on December 14 and to Cartagena on December 19, the first South American routes in the ultra-low-cost carrier’s history. The US airline, a unit of Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: ULCC), announced the service on September 10 in Orlando, where the flights will depart from Orlando International Airport, while Colombia’s Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, MinCIT) and the export and tourism promotion agency ProColombia presented it the same day at an event in Bogotá. All three routes remain subject to government approval.

According to the schedule Frontier published, Medellín will get daily flights from the start. Bogotá opens with six weekly flights and moves to daily service on March 6, 2027, while Cartagena gets one flight per week. The initial operation totals 14 weekly frequencies, rising to 15 once Bogotá goes daily, according to MinCIT. Frontier will fly the routes with Airbus (Euronext Paris: AIR; Frankfurt: AIR; BME: AIR) A320neo aircraft, according to AeroRoutes. To launch the service, the airline offered introductory fares starting at $99 USD to Bogotá, $129 USD to Cartagena and $169 USD to Medellín on tickets bought by September 16 for travel on select days between January 14 and April 5, 2027.

Spirit’s exit

Spirit Airlines flew Orlando-Bogotá and Orlando-Medellín through its final weeks of operation, while its Orlando-Cartagena route last operated in February 2025, according to Aviation Week. Spirit stopped flying on May 2, 2026, after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice, El Universal reported, and Colombia’s Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aeronautics, Aerocivil) estimated at the time that about 10,000 passengers in Colombia were affected by the abrupt shutdown, according to Vanguardia. By then, Spirit’s only remaining Cartagena service was a twice-weekly Fort Lauderdale route, according to El Universal.

Frontier will face competition on two of the three routes. Avianca and LATAM Airlines Group (NYSE: LTM; Santiago Stock Exchange: LTM) already fly Orlando-Bogotá, and Avianca is the only carrier on Orlando-Medellín, according to OAG schedule data cited by Aviation Week. The publication reported that two-way seats between Orlando and Colombia fell 14.8% year over year to 61,220 for the month of August 2026, and that Orlando had no nonstop service to Cartagena.

Tyri Squyres, Frontier’s vice president of public and consumer affairs, said in the airline’s announcement that the carrier sees “strong, unmet demand for low-cost travel between Orlando and Colombia.”

Four cities requested, three announced

The announcement covers less than Frontier asked for. In an application to Aerocivil made public in August, the airline requested seven weekly round trips from Orlando to each of four cities (Bogotá, Medellín, Cartagena and Cali), for a total of 28, using Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, according to Portafolio. The filing sought traffic rights up to the fourth freedom of the air, which allows a carrier to fly passengers, mail and cargo between its home country and another country. Portafolio reported that the request was under review by Aerocivil’s Dirección de Transporte Aéreo y Asuntos Aerocomerciales (Directorate of Air Transport and Air Commerce Affairs). Cali was not part of the September 10 announcement, and neither Frontier nor the Colombian government has said whether a Cali route is planned.

Frontier is based in Denver, Colorado, and Orlando is one of its crew bases, according to Portafolio. The company carried 33.2 million passengers in 2025, according to its fourth-quarter results, and had a fleet of 165 Airbus single-aisle aircraft as of June 30, 2026, according to its second-quarter results. Frontier’s network covers the US, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, according to Portafolio. From Orlando, Colombian travelers will be able to connect to more than 50 destinations in the Caribbean, according to MinCIT, citing the airline.

The government’s connectivity push

The US is already the international market with the most air connectivity to Colombia, with 350 weekly frequencies, carrying more than 61,700 seats, to 12 US cities, according to MinCIT. Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Mauricio Gómez Amín tied the new routes to President Abelardo De La Espriella’s strategy of expanding international air connectivity and making tourism a driver of economic and regional development. “Frontier’s arrival in Colombia means more than new routes: it means more possibilities for travelers, businesspeople and investors to connect with our country,” Gómez Amín said.

Samuel Bluman Levy, president of ProColombia, pointed to coordination between the public and private sectors in bringing the carrier in: “Bringing in a new airline is not just opening a route; it is opening business, tourism and connection opportunities for thousands of Colombians and international travelers.”

Daniel Camejo, a vice president at Frontier, said in the ministry’s announcement that the three cities will be the airline’s first destinations in the country and its first move into South America.

“Colombia is a strategic market, and this is just the beginning of what we want to build and develop here.”

— Daniel Camejo, vice president, Frontier Airlines

The US accounts for more than 23% of air bookings to Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport, making it the capital’s largest source of visitors, according to tourism observatory figures cited by Ángela Garzón, director of the Instituto Distrital de Turismo (District Tourism Institute, IDT), in a statement published by the city government. Garzón said the Orlando route connects the capital with the southeastern US in a little more than four hours of flight time, and that Bogotá closed 2025 with close to 1.9 million foreign visitors.

Headline photo: Officials and airline representatives attend the September 10, 2026, presentation of Frontier Airlines’ Orlando routes in Bogotá. (Photo courtesy MinCIT / Lincoln Acevedo)

Wage Indexation Pushes Services Inflation to Highest Since Late 2024

Colombia’s annual inflation rate climbed to 6.24% in August 2026, its highest level since July 2024, according to consumer price data from the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE) analyzed by Bancolombia. In a September 9 report, the bank, now organized under the financial holding company Grupo Cibest (NYSE: CIB; BVC: CIBEST, PFCIBEST) following a 2025 corporate reorganization, said the annual rate rose 20 basis points on a monthly increase of 0.39%, well above the 0.27% consensus forecast among analysts and the highest August monthly print since 2023. The report is signed by Laura Clavijo, Bancolombia’s chief economist; José Luis Mojica, its macroeconomic manager; Valentina Guáqueta Sterling, a central banking analyst; and Camila Caballero Mercado, an intern, all of the bank’s Economic, Industry and Market Research Area.

Services prices accounted for the bulk of the increase, contributing 22 of the month’s 39 basis points, or 57% of the total, which Bancolombia’s economists attributed mainly to the pass-through of wage and price indexation. Annual services inflation reaccelerated to 7.17% in August, the highest level since November 2024, after two months of moderation; the segment’s 0.45% monthly rate roughly doubled its historical August average of 0.22%. Rents, both actual and imputed, each rose 0.38% for the month, fixed and mobile communications and internet service jumped 0.92%, and cable and network television subscriptions rose 3.01%.

Inflation excluding food, as measured under the central bank’s traditional core classifications, reached 6.30% year over year, its highest level since October 2024 and a sixth consecutive monthly increase. Bancolombia’s team said that pattern suggests underlying price pressures are persistent rather than driven by temporary factors. Annual food inflation, by the report’s classification, reversed course, rising to 6.13% from 5.84% in July on a 0.72% monthly increase, eight times the historical August average of 0.09%, as perishable food prices, including fresh fruit, potatoes, tomatoes and legumes, jumped 10.75% year over year. Goods inflation reached 3.37%, its highest level since February 2024, even as an appreciating Colombian peso continued to hold down prices for new and used vehicles. Regulated prices, which include utilities and transit fares, rose 6.77% annually, their highest level since February 2025 and a sixth consecutive monthly increase, on higher electricity, sewerage, urban transportation, waste collection and parking tariffs.

Bancolombia’s economists tie much of that persistence to indexation and to Colombia’s 2026 minimum wage, which rose 23% to $1,750,905 COP a month. The government reissued the increase on a provisional basis in Decree 0159 of February 19, 2026, to provide legal certainty while the Consejo de Estado (Council of State) reviews a challenge to the original decree, according to elempleo.com. Bancolombia said the pass-through has so far been uneven: it is already showing up clearly in services, particularly categories with annual contractual adjustments such as rents, but remains more contained in goods, where companies are still selling through inventory purchased at lower cost. As those stocks are depleted, the bank expects replacement costs to show up more broadly in consumer prices.

Bancolombia’s economists also expect the effects of El Niño in the second half of 2026 to add upward pressure. On September 10, Colombia’s Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales (Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies, IDEAM) put the probability that the current El Niño becomes the strongest since 1950 at 75% for the fourth quarter of 2026, and the probability of a “very strong” episode through the first quarter of 2027 at more than 90%, according to El Tiempo. Grupo Cibest’s Food Prices Monitor, published September 4, had estimated annual food inflation for August at 5.7%.

Colombia’s central bank, the Banco de la República (Bank of the Republic), targets annual inflation of 3% within a range of 2% to 4%. Its seven-member board raised the benchmark rate to 12% from 11.25% on June 30, 2026, according to El Colombiano, which reported that then-President Gustavo Petro criticized the decision. Petro said that with unemployment in May at the lowest level of the century, “raising the interest rate even further leads only to paralysis.” The board held the rate at 12% on July 31 by a 4–3 vote, with the three dissenting directors favoring a further 50-basis-point increase, according to the central bank. Bancolombia’s economists forecast that the rate will stay at 12% in the months ahead; the board meets next on September 30, 2026.

“The Central Bank will be compelled to maintain a restrictive monetary policy stance to keep inflation expectations anchored.”

— Bancolombia’s Economic, Industry and Market Research Area, August 2026 inflation report

Bancolombia said it expects annual inflation to finish 2026 above 6.5%. BBVA Research said in a September 8 analysis, reported by ABC Economía, that it expects inflation to close the year near 7%, citing domestic demand, El Niño and possible supply shocks. The central bank’s monthly survey of economic analysts, published September 17, raised the year-end inflation expectation to 6.81% from 6.60% and showed analysts expecting a single rate increase, to 12.25%, at the board’s December meeting, according to La República.

Headline photo by catamejia18 from Pixabay

Brazilian and Colombian Firms Back a Chapecoense Memorial in La Unión

Brazilian soccer club Chapecoense arrives in Medellín on Thursday, September 24, for a four-day visit marking 10 years since the LaMia air disaster in La Unión, Antioquia. The visit is part of a program, announced by the Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín in a September 22 release, that runs through September 29 and includes the unveiling of a memorial at the crash site, a groundbreaking for a larger monument in the town, and a friendly match against Atlético Nacional at Medellín’s Estadio Atanasio Girardot on Saturday, September 26.

On the night of November 28, 2016, an aircraft of the private Bolivian airline LaMia went down on a hillside in the vereda (rural district) of Pantalio, in La Unión, near José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, which serves Medellín. The crash killed 71 of the people on board, who were Brazilian, Bolivian, Paraguayan and Venezuelan nationals, as Chapecoense traveled to face Atlético Nacional in the final of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana. Six people survived. Colombia’s Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aviation Authority) later concluded that the aircraft had run out of fuel. At Atlético Nacional’s request, CONMEBOL declared Chapecoense the 2016 champion, according to El Deportivo. The consulate describes the match as a tribute to the Campeones del Cielo (Champions of the Sky), the name given to the victims.

The visit also includes a cornerstone ceremony for a larger, second monument in La Unión that, according to the regional sportswriters’ association ACORD Antioquia, is financed by a group of Brazilian and Colombian companies. Builders affiliated with Camacol Antioquia, the regional chapter of Colombia’s construction chamber, are also backing the project, according to the consulate.

Airport Reception and a Ceremony at the Crash Site

The delegation will be received on Thursday afternoon at José María Córdova airport by staff of Airplan, the concessionaire that operates the terminal, whose employees supported the survivors in the hours after the crash, according to the consulate. On Friday morning, Atlético Nacional will hold a ceremony for the visitors at its training facility in Guarne, in eastern Antioquia.

That afternoon, the Brazilian delegation of players, coaching staff, club directors, press and invited guests will travel to Pantalio, to the hill where the aircraft came down, which the consulate says was renamed Cerro Chapecoense shortly after the accident. The ceremony there includes a prayer, the unveiling of the first memorial to the victims, remarks by local and Brazilian officials, and the raising of the flags of Brazil, Chapecoense and the municipality of La Unión. The memorial is a monolith clad in black marble and inscribed with references to the tragedy. It was donated by the Eco Parque Chapecoense, according to ACORD Antioquia.

The Fuerza Aeroespacial Colombiana (Colombian Aerospace Force), known as the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana (Colombian Air Force) at the time of the crash, led the rescue of that night’s survivors and the transfer of the victims’ remains. The consulate said the force may fly over the site during the ceremony if weather and operational conditions allow.

Residents of the area have kept components of the aircraft in a Chapecoense museum in La Unión. At the ceremony, they will donate to the club the aircraft’s altimeter, which the consulate says carries symbolic information from the moment of the crash. The instrument will go to the club’s own museum in Chapecó, Brazil. ACORD Antioquia reported that club president Alex Boff Passos will receive a piece from the local memorial museum on behalf of Chapecoense.

Groundbreaking for the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó

From the hillside, the delegation will move to the 19 de Diciembre sports complex in the center of La Unión, where the Alcaldía de La Unión (La Unión Mayor’s Office) has designated land for a larger monument, the Memorial La Unión–Chapecó. Camacol Antioquia is organizing the cornerstone ceremony with the mayor’s office, the municipal council and the consulate. The sculptors who worked on both memorials will attend.

ACORD Antioquia reported that the project has been led for several years by Sergio Escobar Solórzano, whom El Colombiano identified as Brazil’s honorary consul in Antioquia. El Colombiano reported in May that the design includes a circular plaza for commemorative events, a wall of plaques, 71 beams of light projected into the night sky, one for each victim, and a park of Colombian and Brazilian flags, and that sculptors Nelson Agustín Agudelo and Carolina Castaño would build it. Under that plan, Camacol Antioquia would supply materials and design, the municipality would provide labor, and Brazilian manufacturer WEG (B3: WEGE3; OTC: WEGZY), which the newspaper said has offices in Rionegro, would contribute energy components. Ferney Lotero, first vice president of the La Unión municipal council, told the newspaper: “Hay muchas empresas que van a aportar” (Many companies are going to contribute). The target then was completion by the 10th anniversary in November, and the newspaper reported that the final budget had not been set. The consulate’s release does not give an updated completion date or budget.

The Partido de la Amistad Eterna at the Atanasio Girardot

Atlético Nacional and Chapecoense meet on Saturday, September 26, at 3:30 p.m. in the Partido de la Amistad Eterna (Match of Eternal Friendship), which its organizer has described as a reunion that transcends soccer. The consulate’s release and the promotional poster list a 4 p.m. start, while ACORD Antioquia and Deportes RCN report 3:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale through Atlético Nacional’s Tribuna Verde platform. Deportes RCN reported single-ticket prices, including service and delivery charges, ranging from $44,648 COP for the gramilla (field level) and the north and south stands to $190,230 COP for the platea (premium seating) section, with lower prices for season-ticket holders.

Before kickoff, organizers plan to recognize people the consulate calls the “invisible heroes” of the night of the crash, followed by remarks from local and Brazilian representatives.

A Documentary Trailer and a Donation to a Rural School

On Sunday, September 27, at 11 a.m., Medellín production company Roca Films will present the trailer of the documentary Chapecó: El último sobreviviente, nace una hermandad (Chapecó: The Last Survivor, a Brotherhood Is Born) to the Brazilian delegation and the press. According to the consulate, the film reconstructs previously unpublished details of the tragedy and honors the survivors, in particular one of the club’s players, who will attend the screening. The film’s poster credits Edison Vanegas Álvarez as director. In November 2017, Noticias Caracol reported on a 42-minute documentary titled El último sobreviviente, directed by Edison Vanegas, then head of communications for the Policía Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá (Valle de Aburrá Metropolitan Police), about the rescue of Chapecoense defender Helio Zampier Neto.

The final event takes place on Tuesday, September 29, when Colombian and international companies with ties to Brazil will donate a set of kitchen appliances to the Centro Educativo Rural La Almería (La Almería Rural Education Center), at its Pantalio campus, for use by its students, teachers and staff. According to the consulate, residents along the road leading to Cerro Chapecoense have decorated the route in the colors of the Brazilian flag.

Headline photo: The black marble monolith memorial to the victims of the 2016 LaMia crash, to be unveiled at Cerro Chapecoense in La Unión, Antioquia. (Image courtesy Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Medellín)

Wingo’s Aruba expansion signals growing Colombia-Caribbean air demand

Wingo and the Aruba Tourism Authority said Wednesday that direct flights between Colombia and Aruba now connect five Colombian capitals, following the addition of two new routes in 2026.

Wingo has operated flights between Bogotá and Aruba since December 2016. The carrier added Medellín in 2022 and Cali in 2023, followed by Bucaramanga in June 2026 and Barranquilla in July 2026. The expansion brings the total number of Colombian capitals with direct Wingo service to Aruba to five. Some routes operate year-round while others are seasonal, depending on demand in each market and periods of higher passenger volume.

“We want Aruba to keep getting closer to Colombians. That is why we have taken our operation beyond Bogotá, and today we connect the island with five of the country’s capitals. With fares starting about 40% below competitors, we continue to make an aspirational, nearby destination that’s perfect for a getaway more accessible.”- Jorge Jiménez, vice president of commercial and planning, Wingo

Wingo carried 73,000 passengers on its Colombia-Aruba routes between January and July 2026, according to the airline. With the two new routes now operating, the carrier projects that approximately 150,000 passengers will travel between the two markets by the end of 2026.

Wingo operates administratively under Copa Airlines Colombia, the Colombian unit of Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE: CPA), the Panama-based parent that launched the Wingo brand in 2016. Wingo maintains its own commercial, distribution and customer-service operations separately from Copa Airlines Colombia’s full-service network.

According to Wingo’s data, an average 84% of passengers traveling on the Colombia-Aruba routes do so for vacation. Visits to family and friends represent a larger share among passengers traveling from Aruba to Colombia. Overall, 70% of the traveler base consists of Colombian nationals, while the remaining 30% are Aruban and Dutch nationals visiting relatives or traveling in Colombia.

Aruba’s tourism proposition for Colombian travelers extends beyond its beaches. The island’s culture reflects the influence of more than 100 nationalities, while attractions include Arikok National Park, a protected reserve covering about 20% of the island’s land area. The destination also promotes local and international dining, wellness and entertainment offerings.

Claudia Delgado, the Aruba Tourism Authority’s sales representative in Colombia, said stronger air connectivity gives Colombian visitors a reason to explore more of the island beyond its beaches.

“Aruba combines beaches that are known worldwide with a distinct cultural identity, diverse cuisine, nature, wellness and experiences that let visitors take in the destination in different ways,” Delgado said.

The Aruba Tourism Authority said the additional routes are also supporting travel from Aruba to Colombia. Medellín and Barranquilla have become popular destinations for travelers departing Aruba, reflecting demand associated with tourism, health and wellness travel, business trips, and visits to family and friends.

The two organizations said future route decisions and destination promotion will continue to track passenger demand in both markets.

Headline photo: A Wingo 737 at Aruba Airport (Photo courtesy of Aruba Airport Authority.)

Grupo SURA-Backed VaxThera Targets a Global Vaccine Shortage

VaxThera S.A.S., a Colombian biotechnology company backed by Grupo SURA (BVC: GRUPOSURA; OTC: GIVSY), and Codagenix Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company based in Farmingdale, New York, announced September 15, 2026, that they have reached an agreement on terms for VaxThera to exclusively license a synthetic yellow fever vaccine candidate from Codagenix. Under the agreement, VaxThera plans to take the candidate, known as Syn17D-YF (CDX-470), through manufacturing, preclinical and clinical development, regulatory registration and commercialization in markets the companies have not yet specified.

Codagenix describes Syn17D-YF as the world’s first fully synthetic yellow fever vaccine candidate built for modern cell-culture manufacturing. The company says the candidate’s synthetic DNA sequence matches the genome of yellow fever vaccine strain 17D-204, the strain behind YF-VAX, the version manufactured by Sanofi (EPA: SAN; NASDAQ: SNY) and authorized by the FDA in the United States, as well as the Robert Koch Institute‘s own 17D strain and the World Health Organization‘s 17D Reference Lot 168-73. Codagenix says its own testing found the candidate to be genetically stable and capable of high yields in cell culture without the mutations toward pathogenicity that have defeated earlier attempts to move 17D-204 derivatives out of eggs.

Every yellow fever vaccine currently licensed anywhere traces back to the Asibi or 17D-204 strains isolated in the 1930s, and all of them are still produced in embryonated chicken eggs, a process that limits how quickly manufacturers can scale output and that researchers have linked to recurring shortages and a comparatively poor reactogenicity profile tied to egg- and process-related impurities. Codagenix says its cell-culture approach is designed to avoid both problems by allowing easier virus recovery and purification, which the company says leaves fewer host-protein and DNA impurities in the finished product.

The deal comes as the region VaxThera and Codagenix are targeting faces a worsening outbreak. The region logged 346 confirmed cases and 143 deaths in 2025 — nearly six times the case count and close to five times the death toll reported in 2024 — followed by 34 more cases and 15 deaths in the first seven weeks of 2026. The Pan American Health Organization reported that Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela all had sustained yellow fever transmission as of March 2026. Colombia alone recorded 125 cases and 46 deaths in 2025, according to PAHO, which has urged countries to keep strategic vaccine stockpiles on hand and to maintain vaccination coverage of at least 95% among exposed populations, noting that most confirmed cases in 2025 and the first weeks of 2026 were in people who had not been vaccinated. The World Health Organization’s Eliminate Yellow Fever Epidemics strategy, running from 2017 through 2026, has pushed for the same kind of expanded, more affordable vaccine access the companies say their agreement is meant to support.

“Yellow fever is part of the history of Latin America, but we should not let vaccine shortages define its future,” said Jorge Osorio, chief executive officer of VaxThera. “This is what we set out to do when we built VaxThera: put our science and advanced manufacturing to work in Colombia on challenges that go well beyond our borders.”

“Yellow fever is part of the history of Latin America, but we should not let vaccine shortages define its future.”

— Jorge Osorio, CEO, VaxThera (above photo)

VaxThera was founded in 2021 with Grupo SURA’s backing and has since built what the company describes as an integrated research, process-development, quality-control and manufacturing operation in Rionegro, near Medellín’s international airport. The project has required roughly $100 million USD in investment, funded primarily by Grupo SURA rather than the Colombian government, Osorio told Finance Colombia last year. Osorio, a Colombia-born professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison‘s School of Veterinary Medicine, previously co-founded Inviragen, a dengue vaccine developer that Takeda Pharmaceutical (TSE: 4502; NYSE: TAK) acquired for up to $250 million USD in 2013. VaxThera says its Rionegro facility, built to international GMP standards, now has the potential to produce more than 150 million doses of biologics annually, positioning the company, and Colombia, as a regional manufacturing base for vaccines that have historically been made in only a handful of countries.

Codagenix was spun out of research at Stony Brook University, in the laboratory of National Academy of Sciences member Eckard Wimmer, and counts Adjuvant Capital, TopSpin Partners and Euclidean Capital among its investors. Its platform is built on codon deoptimization, a technique for redesigning a virus’s genetic code so that it still triggers an immune response while losing its ability to cause disease. Syn17D-YF is one of several live-attenuated and synthetic-biology vaccine and viral-therapeutic candidates in the company’s pipeline, which also includes ongoing research and licensing programs with several US federal agencies.

“Syn17D-YF modernizes the manufacturing of a proven and needed vaccine, and VaxThera provides the vision, capabilities and regional position required to advance it toward global impact,” said Jeffrey Fu, Codagenix’s chief business officer.

VaxThera and Codagenix said they intend to keep working together toward the broader goal of strengthening yellow fever vaccine supply chains in both endemic and non-endemic regions. Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the license or a timeline for when Syn17D-YF might reach preclinical or clinical trials in Colombia.

Above: Vaxthera CEO Jorge Osorio (photo: Liliana padierna)

Boxing Match Highlights Rare Unity in Long-Conflicted Caquetá

The governor of Colombia’s Caquetá department and the mayor of its capital, Florencia, put on gloves and headgear and boxed two rounds in front of a live crowd on September 12, 2026, in a charity exhibition organized to relaunch the region’s amateur boxing league. Governor Luis Francisco Ruiz Aguilar defeated Mayor Marlon Monsalve Ascanio when Monsalve could not continue one minute and 15 seconds into the second round.

The bout, billed as Guerra en la Selva (“War in the Jungle”), was held at the JR nightclub in Florencia and included six other amateur matches on the same card. Ruiz Aguilar, who took office in January 2024 as governor of Caquetá, wore yellow; Monsalve, mayor of the Florencia municipal government since the same date, wore burgundy. Neither official had trained as a boxer before the match, and both said afterward that the fight reflected cooperation between their administrations rather than any political rivalry.

The event doubled as a tribute to Genaro Granja Banguera, an 80-year-old boxing instructor known locally as “Chico Furia” who has trained fighters in Caquetá for more than six decades and is currently being treated for prostate cancer. Monsalve presented Granja with the city’s Medalla al Mérito Ciudad Florencia (Florencia City Medal of Merit) during the event, along with a pledge of home repairs and food assistance, according to Lente Regional.

Ruiz Aguilar posted a statement after the fight describing it as evidence of a working relationship between the departmental and municipal governments.

“More than a fight, this was a demonstration of the unity, brotherhood and teamwork that today binds our administrations together. We will keep working hand in hand for the well-being of everyone in Caquetá and Florencia.”

— Luis Francisco Ruiz Aguilar, governor of Caquetá

Monsalve, a lawyer and former university administrator whose 2023 election victory came without the backing of Caquetá’s traditional political machines, took the loss in stride. “The governor beat me, and he gave me the privilege of facing him. I think that next time, if I train, I can win,” he said, according to Semana.

Ruiz Aguilar, a physician and former mayor of Cartagena del Chairá, said he next intends to face Luis Trujillo Osorio, mayor of the neighboring municipality of San Vicente del Caguán, in a future exhibition bout, according to NTN24, though neither office has confirmed a date.

The card was organized by Wendy Paola Gutiérrez Cuesta of Agencia WG with backing from both governments, according to Infobae, which also collected reactions on Colombian social media that were largely critical of the spectacle, including one reader who called it “a bad example” and another who compared it unfavorably to how disputes get settled in Colombia’s Congress. Other commenters defended the officials, framing the bout as harmless local promotion, according to NTN24.

Caquetá, a department bordering Colombia’s Amazon region, was for decades one of the areas most affected by the armed conflict involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Its economy still depends heavily on cattle ranching, agriculture and public spending centered in Florencia, the departmental capital.

Photo from Facebook page of Governor Luis Francisco Ruiz Aguilar

Colombia’s gun-carry permits have specific citizenship and residency requirements.

Colombia’s Ministerio de Defensa Nacional (Ministry of National Defense) lifted the decade-long general suspension on firearm-carry permits on September 8, 2026, through Decree 1368 of 2026, signed under the authority of President Abelardo de la Espriella. The decree took effect September 9, the day after its publication in the Diario Oficial (Official Gazette), and restores the ability of citizens who already hold a valid porte de armas (carry) permit to move through Colombian territory with their weapon, without the special individual authorization the suspension had required since 2015.

The suspension traces to Decree 2515 of December 24, 2015, issued under then-President Juan Manuel Santos, and was renewed by successive governments — including those of Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro — for nearly 11 years before de la Espriella’s decree ended it. Finance Colombia reported on the decree’s signing and the political reaction to it on September 8. What follows is a closer look at what the decree actually changes in the permitting system, who qualifies to carry a firearm under it, and how Colombian doctrine on ownership, carrying and self-defense compares with the framework used in the United States.

What the decree does, and explicitly does not do.

Decree 1368 is narrow by its own terms. Article 1 instructs Colombia’s military authorities to lift the general suspension nationwide. Article 2 states plainly that doing so “no crea nuevos derechos, no autoriza el libre porte de armas de fuego, ni modifica los requisitos legales, condiciones, restricciones y controles previstos” in Decree-Law 2535 of 1993 — it creates no new rights, does not authorize the free carrying of firearms, and does not alter the legal requirements, conditions, restrictions or controls already in force. What changes is procedural: permit holders no longer need the special, individual authorization the suspension had layered on top of an otherwise valid permit.

That narrow framing reflects Colombia’s underlying constitutional structure. Article 223 of the Constitution establishes a state monopoly over weapons, munitions and explosives and specifies that no one may possess or carry them without authorization from the competent authority. Decree-Law 2535 of 1993 — the framework law both decrees invoke — states in Article 3 that private citizens may possess or carry weapons only “de manera excepcional” (exceptionally), through a permit issued under the “potestad discrecional” (discretionary power) of the competent authority. Colombia’s Constitutional Court upheld that discretionary framework in Sentencia C-031 of February 2, 1995, and separately upheld the government’s authority to impose a general suspension in Sentencia C-867 of November 3, 2010; the preamble to Decree 1368 cites both rulings.

Ownership, carrying and use are three separate permissions.

Colombian law does not treat buying, keeping, carrying and using a firearm as a single bundle of rights that comes with ownership. Decree 2535 draws a sharp line between two base categories. Article 16 defines tenencia (possession) as keeping the weapon and its ammunition inside the specific property registered on the permit, for personal defense; the permit authorizes use of the weapon only within that property. Article 17 defines porte (carry) as the act of carrying the weapon, or keeping it within reach, for personal defense, under a separate permit issued by the competent authority.

Retired Major General Fernando Murillo Orrego, who directed the National Police‘s Dirección de Investigación Criminal e Interpol (Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol, or DIJIN) from 2020 to 2022, described the practical difference in a broadcast interview the day the decree was signed: tenencia is bought from the state and kept in one place — a residence, a business, a farm, a store — and cannot be transported in a vehicle or carried on one’s person, while porte is acquired specifically so the weapon can accompany the holder through their personal or work activity.

A third, narrower category complicates the ownership-equals-use assumption further. Article 9 of Decree 2535 allows restricted-use weapons to be authorized to cash-transport companies, corporate security departments and specialized security services, subject to the Superintendencia de Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada (Superintendency of Private Security and Surveillance). An employee issued a firearm under one of those institutional permits can hold and carry it on the job without being authorized to use it for their own personal defense — the permit belongs to the employer’s security function, not the individual. Murillo pointed to that gap directly, calling Colombia “the only country” where a weapon can be sold to someone legally who still cannot use it for their own personal protection, because the permit is tied to their employer’s business activity rather than to them as an individual.

This article is informational only, and does not constitute legal advice. Seek guidance from competent experts and authorities!

Who can apply, and what the process requires.

Under Decree 2535 and the rules the Departamento Control Comercio de Armas, Municiones y Explosivos (Department for the Commercial Control of Arms, Munitions and Explosives, or DCCAE) applies today, an applicant for an individual carry permit must be a Colombian citizen at least 25 years old, according to recent reporting from El Colombiano and Infobae. Article 33 of the decree requires the applicant’s cédula de ciudadanía (citizenship card), a judicial background certificate, and a medical certificate of psychophysical fitness; Article 34 additionally requires the applicant to justify the necessity of carrying a weapon for their own defense and physical integrity. In practice, DCCAE also requires a certified firearms-handling course.

General Murillo, describing the same vetting process, told interviewers the requirements come down to a psychological examination, personal references and a clean judicial record, all reviewed by a committee rather than decided by a single official. Meeting every requirement does not guarantee approval — Article 34’s “necesidad” (necessity) standard leaves the final decision to the discretion of the military authority. Permits are not issued for a uniform term: Murillo said validity runs one, three or 10 years depending on the type of firearm involved.

Renewing a lapsed permit:

Citizens whose permits had already expired can revalidate them through the DCCAE’s online platform, which the department’s own site identifies as SIAEM 2.0 (Sistema de Información de Armas, Explosivos y Municiones, or the Weapons, Explosives and Munitions Information System), reachable through the department’s 36 regional seccionales (branch offices). A spokesperson for the department said in a video statement that the platform runs verifications against the National Police, INTERPOL, the Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) and the DCCAE itself, under Law 2535 of 1993.

DCCAE’s published fee schedule sets a graduated fine for late revalidation of a carry permit: one-quarter of a month’s minimum wage for a renewal filed within 45 days of expiration, half a month’s minimum wage between 46 and 90 days, and a full month’s minimum wage — $1,750,905 COP at 2026 rates — beyond 90 days. The department spokesperson’s own public description on camera was less precise, describing a flat fine equal to one month’s minimum wage for any permit expired more than 30 days; the published schedule on the department’s site is the more current and specific figure.

What the decree does not revive:

Article 6 of Decree 1368 excludes several categories of permit holders from the benefit of the lifted suspension. Carrying remains prohibited where:

• the permit has expired;
• the permit was individually suspended;
• the permit was canceled or revoked;
• the weapon has been seized or is subject to a judicial or administrative measure;
• a legal or judicial prohibition applies; or
• the permit authorizes only tenencia and not porte.

Article 7 preserves, without change, the inspection, control and seizure powers of the National Police and other competent authorities. Carrying a firearm without a currently valid permit remains porte ilegal (illegal carrying), a criminal offense, regardless of the general suspension being lifted.

Where non-citizens and permanent residents stand

Neither Decree 1368 nor Decree 2535 sets out a distinct application path for foreign nationals who hold Colombian residency. The requirement in Article 33 is specifically for a cédula de ciudadanía — the identity document issued to Colombian nationals, whether by birth or naturalization — rather than the cédula de extranjería issued to foreign residents. The only foreigner-specific provisions identified in Decree 2535 concern accredited diplomatic personnel, a separate and narrower category under Article 29. Neither decree, nor the coverage of Decree 1368 reviewed for this article, documents an equivalent civilian route for a foreign permanent resident.

This is a reading of what the published regulation does and does not say, not legal advice. A foreign national or permanent resident weighing a firearm permit in Colombia should raise the question directly with the DCCAE rather than rely on this or any other secondary account.

How Colombian doctrine diverges from the US framework

The contrast with the United States is structural, not just procedural. The US Supreme Court has treated the Second Amendment, since District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, as protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, a right the Court incorporated against state and local governments in McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010. In 2022, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen extended that right to carrying a firearm outside the home and replaced the balancing tests lower courts had used with a historical-tradition standard, pushing most US states toward “shall-issue” or permitless carry regimes in which an applicant who meets objective, listed criteria is entitled to a permit.

Colombia has no analogous individual constitutional right to test a permit denial against. Article 223’s state monopoly, and Decree 2535’s framing of civilian possession and carrying as an exceptional grant made at the “discretionary power” of the military authority, mean that even an applicant who satisfies every documentary requirement is not entitled to a permit as a matter of right — the Constitutional Court upheld exactly that discretion in Sentencia C-031 of 1995. A valid Colombian carry permit is a conditional, revocable authorization, not a constitutional entitlement.

General Murillo framed the policy in terms of shared responsibility rather than individual right, telling interviewers that Colombians bear a corresponsabilidad (shared responsibility) for their own protection alongside the state, and that a citizen’s legal access to a firearm can itself deter criminals who know it exists.

“The mere fact that today’s ordinary criminal knows there are citizens who legally carry firearms is a deterrent against all the violent acts we are seeing.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Fernando Murillo Orrego, former director, DIJIN

That view is contested inside Colombia: former President Gustavo Petro criticized the decree in terms Finance Colombia reported on September 8, and Colombian security analysts remain divided on whether broader carrying reduces or increases armed violence. This article takes no position on that policy question; it describes what the regulation itself permits.

Carrying, using and Colombia’s “legítima defensa” doctrine

Colombia’s Penal Code (Law 599 of 2000) recognizes legítima defensa (self-defense) in Article 32, numeral 6, as a ground for the absence of criminal responsibility when a person acts to defend a right of their own or of another against an actual or imminent unjust aggression, using proportionate means. Colombian criminal attorney Javier Arévalo, speaking alongside host Felipe “Pipe” Caballero in a recorded legal discussion of the decree, addressed a scenario the new rules raise directly: if a person disarms an attacker and uses that weapon to repel the attack, Arévalo said, that does not by itself amount to illegal weapons carrying, because illegal carrying requires the voluntary, conscious decision to take up and carry a firearm in public without authorization — not merely the act of taking a weapon away from an aggressor in self-defense.

Arévalo was more cautious about firearms used to defend property alone. Shooting someone who breaks a car window to steal a bag, he said, would generally read as disproportionate; a firearm response becomes more legally defensible, in his account, only where the aggression also threatens the victim’s life or physical integrity, not merely their belongings. He also confirmed that legítima defensa extends to defending a third party, including a stranger, once the threat is real or imminent — but drew a firm line against citizens capturing a suspect and then assaulting or torturing them instead of turning them over to police, which he described as a separate, more serious offense than the original crime.

That proportionality-driven, case-by-case standard has no exact equivalent in Colombian statute to the “stand your ground” or expanded castle-doctrine laws adopted in some US states, which remove a legal duty to retreat before using force in self-defense in specified circumstances. Colombian doctrine keeps the proportionality analysis in place regardless of where the confrontation occurs, and Article 7 of Decree 1368 leaves Colombian police with full authority to stop, inspect and seize weapons independent of whether the carrier’s underlying permit is valid.

Above photo © Loren Moss

Certification formalizes safety oversight of EPM’s drone fleet

Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has become the first public utility services provider in Colombia certified by the Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aeronautics Authority), commonly known as Aerocivil, to operate unmanned aircraft systems, the company announced Thursday, following a rigorous evaluation and audit process. The certification backs a drone operation EPM has developed progressively since 2018; the company currently flies 22 drones with 56 accredited pilots.

Flights are governed by Colombia’s Reglamento Aeronáutico de Colombia (Aeronautical Regulation of Colombia), known as RAC 100, which sets the national rules for operating unmanned aircraft systems. EPM also built a Sistema de Gestión de Seguridad Operacional (Operational Safety Management System) specifically for the drones, assigning roles, procedures, committees, and change- and risk-management mechanisms. Within the company, internal guidelines for drone use are set by the Área Tecnologías de la Operación (Operations Technology Area), part of the Gerencia de Tecnologías y Procesos (Technology and Processes Management).

To run the fleet day to day, EPM built a hybrid structure that combines centralized oversight with decentralized operations inside the business units that use the aircraft. The centralized component assigns responsibility for operational safety, pilot coordination and maintenance, along with shared processes for documentation, training and incident notification; flights themselves are carried out by pilots and area managers who hold defined responsibilities under the model.

“This certification recognizes a capability that EPM has been building around the responsible and safe use of drones. It’s not just about acquiring aircraft, but about having trained pilots, procedures, risk management, and an operational safety structure that makes it possible to obtain useful information to care for our infrastructure and support service delivery.”

— Edgar Alexis Fernández Cardona, head of EPM’s Operations Technology Area

EPM uses the aircraft to inspect electrical grids, substations, power generation plants, reservoirs, water supply and sewer systems, and treatment plants, and to track civil works progress, manage risk, respond to emergencies, and produce photogrammetry and three-dimensional models of its infrastructure. The company said drone use reduces worker exposure to height, cuts inspection times, and generates precise, standardized, georeferenced information, including real-time weather tracking during the current El Niño pattern affecting the region.

Pilots must train at an authorized Centro de Instrucción Aeronáutico (Aeronautical Instruction Center) and pass Aerocivil’s theoretical exam, which covers aeronautical regulation, meteorology, communications, human factors, risk management and safe drone operation. They must also hold a current occupational medical certificate and complete recurrent training, flight hours and internally established procedures.

According to EPM’s own corporate disclosures, the company is wholly owned by the Municipality of Medellín, operating as an industrial and commercial state company rather than a publicly traded firm, and it provides water, sewerage, electricity and gas service across Medellín and the greater Valle de Aburrá metropolitan region, home to roughly 2.6 million people. The company is the parent of a business group of 44 subsidiaries operating in Colombia and abroad.

Colombian business outlet La República also reported the certification this week, corroborating EPM’s account of its fleet size, pilot roster and the 2018 start date for its drone program.

Outcrop Silver & Gold Corporation (TSX: OCG, OTCQX: OCGSF, DE: MRG) said assay results from its latest drilling at the Santa Ana project in Tolima, Colombia, confirmed a new high-grade silver-gold shoot the company located using a geologic model rather than any indication of ore at surface. The company also reported additional high-grade intercepts extending mineralization at depth at Las Maras, a separate high-grade target within the same district.

Santa Ana: a structural model finds a blind shoot

Drilling intersected what Outcrop Silver has designated “Shoot 7” in a zone the company selected because it fit a spacing pattern observed between three previously discovered shoots along the same structure. Hole DH648 returned 9.16 meters (5.28 meters estimated true width) grading 127 grams per ton silver and 0.70 grams per ton gold, equivalent to 188 grams per ton silver, including a higher-grade section of 0.40 meters (0.23 meters ETW) grading 1,930 grams per ton silver and 8.65 grams per ton gold, equivalent to 2,693 grams per ton silver.

Outcrop Silver has traced the Santa Ana structure, the namesake vein of the company’s primary project, along 1.7 kilometers of strike and 350 meters of dip. The company describes it as a shear zone with a pinch-and-swell geometry, in which the widest, highest-grade intervals occur where the structure bulges. Applying that pattern, geologists targeted a swell located roughly 300 to 400 meters from the previously identified San Juan shoot — the same spacing the company had already measured between the structure’s other shoots — and drilling confirmed ore where the model predicted it.

Shoot 7 has no expression at surface. It is the fourth ore shoot identified along the Santa Ana structure itself, following the Roberto Tovar shoot near the project’s colonial-era underground workings, the San Juan shoot (see news release dated January 5, 2021), and the San Antonio shoot (see news release dated June 15, 2021).

This release reports assay results from seven holes at Santa Ana and its splay structures in total. Three of them — DH553, DH560 and DH656 — returned narrower intercepts ranging from roughly 100 to 560 grams per ton silver equivalent along the structure and its splays, detailed in the full assay table.

Separately, holes DH645, DH648 and DH650 each intersected a splay structure along the hanging wall of Santa Ana. Hole DH652 returned the single highest grade in the release within one of those splays: 0.30 meters (0.22 meters ETW) grading 5,196 grams per ton silver and 8.51 grams per ton gold, equivalent to 5,947 grams per ton silver. Outcrop Silver said the hanging-wall splays point to additional high-grade structure at depth that its existing geological model does not yet account for.

Las Maras: the high-grade core holds at depth, then narrows in one hole

The company also released results from five holes at Las Maras, a near-vertical, historically high-grade target where the current program was designed to test whether that grade holds up down-dip. Hole DH637 returned the strongest result: 2.86 meters (2.30 meters estimated true width) grading 1,760 grams per ton silver and 5.14 grams per ton gold, equivalent to 2,214 grams per ton silver — the widest high-grade interval yet reported at the target — including 0.30 meters (0.24 meters ETW) grading 4,285 grams per ton silver and 8.18 grams per ton gold (5,006 grams per ton silver equivalent) and 0.51 meters (0.41 meters ETW) grading 4,185 grams per ton silver and 15.27 grams per ton gold (5,533 grams per ton silver equivalent).

A splay structure along the hanging wall of Las Maras also returned high-grade results: hole DH624 intersected 0.30 meters (0.21 meters ETW) grading 3,386 grams per ton silver and 10.99 grams per ton gold, equivalent to 4,355 grams per ton silver. Hole DH640, the deepest hole drilled at the target to date, intersected a narrower interval of the structure with lower silver grades at that specific point. Outcrop Silver said it is incorporating that result into its geological model rather than treating it as evidence the target is closing off, citing the strength of DH637 along the same trend. Holes DH630 and DH653 returned additional results consistent with the structure’s continuity.

Background: a rebuilt leadership team and a resource update due this month

Outcrop Silver — known as Outcrop Gold Corp. until a name change effective June 14, 2021 — has spent the past year rebuilding its leadership. Rob Bruggeman became chief executive in April, and Carlos Torres, a geologist with more than 20 years of experience in mineral exploration, including extensive work in Colombia, who previously served as vice president of exploration at Sun Valley Investments, joined as vice president of exploration in May. The company has said that transition pushed back the release of an updated mineral resource estimate to the third quarter of this year; Outcrop Silver now says that update is anticipated this month. The company graduated from the TSX Venture Exchange to the Toronto Stock Exchange in November 2025, continuing to trade under the ticker OCG.

Santa Ana’s only mineral resource estimate to date, prepared by AMC Mining Consultants in a NI 43-101 technical report dated June 8, 2023, put the project’s indicated resource at approximately 1.35 million tons (1.226 million tonnes) grading 614 grams per ton silver equivalent, containing 24.2 million ounces, with a further 1.06 million tons (966,000 tonnes) inferred at 435 grams per ton, containing 13.5 million ounces. That estimate covered seven vein systems at Santa Ana; the current campaign has since confirmed mineralization in six additional systems, including Jimenez and Los Mangos, that sit outside the 2023 estimate entirely.

Assay samples were prepared at an Actlabs facility in Medellín and analyzed at the firm’s laboratory in Ancaster, Ontario, with blanks, duplicates and certified reference materials inserted at a rate of about three control samples per 20 drill samples. Torres, a registered professional geoscientist in Ontario, signed off on the results as the qualified person under NI 43-101.

Silver equivalent figures in this release are calculated using metal prices of $2,760 USD per ounce for gold and $32 USD per ounce for silver, with metallurgical recoveries of 98.5 percent for gold and 96.3 percent for silver based on the company’s own metallurgical test work reported in June 2024.

Headline photo: A geologist logs core samples at the Santa Ana project’s core-handling facility in Falan, Tolima. (Photo courtesy Outcrop Silver)

President Abelardo De La Espriella signed Law 2627 on August 24, 2026, creating Colombia’s first standalone criminal offense for the sexual abuse of animals and making it the only crime against animals in the country’s penal code that does not qualify for pretrial release. The law took effect immediately upon publication and carries a base prison term of 48 to 55 months, rising to as much as 140 months — more than 11 years — when aggravating circumstances apply.

The new Article 339D of the Criminal Code, known informally as the Ley No Más Zoofilia (Spanish for “No More Zoophilia Law”), defines the offense as carnal access to an animal — legally, penetration by a human sexual organ or by any other body part or object. The statute separately defines “acto sexual” (sexual act) as any other sexual conduct imposed on an animal that stops short of penetration, but does not attach an independent criminal penalty to that term in the text as enacted. That is narrower than the original version of the bill, filed in Congress in August 2024, which would have criminalized “acto sexual con animales” on its own, with a lighter 12-to-36-month sentence.

Advisory: Potentially disturbing content.

Beyond prison time, anyone convicted faces special disqualification of two to four years from any profession, trade or business involving the care, possession or handling of animals, an absolute ban on acquiring, possessing, caring for or sheltering animals, and a fine of 30 to 50 salarios mínimos mensuales legales vigentes (the monthly legal minimum wage, or SMMLV) — $52,527,150 COP to $87,545,250 COP, roughly $16,800 USD to $28,000 USD at the Banco de la República‘s exchange rate this week of about 3,126 pesos per dollar.

Sentences increase by half to three-quarters, up to the 140-month ceiling, when the offense is committed by two or more people, involves more than one animal, takes place in a public space or for profit, is repeated against the same animal, is committed by someone abusing a position, job or profession that gave them particular trust over the animal’s care, or is recorded and shared through media, a digital platform or social network in a way that promotes or glorifies the crime. The law also treats abuse carried out with cruelty; as revenge, retaliation, a threat or another form of coercion against an animal’s owner, holder or possessor, or for a base or trivial motive; or against an animal already under institutional custody or in a vulnerable state — because of age, illness, disability, pregnancy, abandonment, recovery from a prior injury or its inability to defend itself — as aggravating circumstances.

The statute explicitly exempts licensed veterinary and zootechnical procedures, along with diagnostic techniques used in animal reproduction and productivity, from criminal liability — a carve-out relevant to Colombia’s livestock and artificial-insemination industries, since practitioners in those fields are also the group facing the law’s professional disqualification if convicted of the new offense. Judges may additionally order convicted offenders into mandatory restorative-justice programs or animal-welfare education, though the law specifies that these measures can never substitute for or reduce the prison sentence and other penalties.

The law gives the national government six months to design a public-education campaign on the new offense, led by the Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho (Ministry of Justice and Law) in coordination with the health and culture ministries, working with animal shelters and welfare organizations. In the same window, the Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) must issue a unified investigative protocol for gathering evidence in these cases and train animal-rights activists and organizations to assist prosecutors in that work.

The bill was sponsored by senators Iván Cepeda and Esmeralda Hernández of the Pacto Histórico coalition, who first introduced it in August 2024. At the time, Hernández pointed to Fiscalía data — 61 cases of sexual violence against animals logged nationwide by the Fiscalía’s Grupo Especial para la Lucha contra el Maltrato Animal (GELMA, or Special Group for the Fight Against Animal Abuse) as of February 2024 — and to research linking abusers of animals to a heightened risk of later sexually abusing vulnerable people. “There is technical and scientific evidence indicating that some rapists of human beings previously engaged in sexually abusive conduct toward animals,” Hernández said when she filed the bill, according to Infobae. The measure cleared its final debate in the Colombian Congress in June 2026 and was sent to the president’s desk for signature on August 6, 2026.

Hernández, the bill’s lead sponsor, told El Tiempo that the new offense’s most significant feature is its exclusion from bail.

“It is the only crime against animals in Colombia that does not qualify for release from custody.”

— Sen. Esmeralda Hernández, the law’s lead sponsor

Sen. Andrea Padilla, a separate animal-rights legislator not among the bill’s listed sponsors, also welcomed the signing on X: “The law that criminally punishes the sexual abuse of animals in Colombia has been sanctioned! Thank you, Mr. President,” she wrote, adding that her own team had worked to make the law’s criminal provisions “penalmente robusta” (criminally robust) — a contribution Finance Colombia could not independently verify.

Colombia’s lack of a specific criminal charge for sexual abuse of animals had already drawn national attention once before. In July 2023, a ceramic sculpture titled Mi Primer Amor (“My First Love”), created by the artist Sebastián Bohórquez, went up in Sincelejo, the capital of Sucre department on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, with a plaque describing it as a tribute to the “hombre costeño ‘mamaburra'” — a phrase referring to a persistent regional folk belief that rural men on the Caribbean coast had their first sexual experience with a donkey. Sincelejo officials ordered the sculpture removed, and it came down within a week of going up, citing the lack of a permit for the public space it occupied, according to Infobae. The episode set off a national debate over a custom long associated with parts of the Caribbean coast; Hernández’s own 2024 bill announcement cited the sculpture as a recent example of the broader conversation her legislation was meant to address.

Within Título XI-A of the Criminal Code — the section covering Delitos Contra los Animales (“Crimes Against Animals”) — Law 2627 also renames its single chapter as Delitos contra la vida, la integridad física, emocional y sexual de los animales (“Crimes Against the Life, Physical Integrity, Emotional Well-Being and Sexual Integrity of Animals”), folding sexual abuse into the same chapter as animal cruelty while keeping it a distinct, more harshly penalized offense within it.