Red Cross says people displaced by conflict in Colombia doubled last year

Annual report by ICRC finds worsening conditions for Colombian civilians amid continued fighting between armed groups.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has documented an uptick in displacement, disappearances and explosive injuries as a result of Colombia’s six-decade-long internal conflict.In an annual report released on Tuesday, the ICRC found that 2025 saw the “worst humanitarian consequences” in the last decade of the conflict.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Suspect in slaying of Colombian presidential hopeful arrested in Argentinalist 2 of 3Petro becomes first president to visit Venezuela since Maduro abductionlist 3 of 3At least 20 killed in Colombia highway blastend of listSince 1964, Colombia has been enmeshed in a multilateral conflict that has pitted criminal groups, left-wing rebels, right-wing and government forces against each other.A turning point came in 2016, when the Colombia" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="6250" data-entity-type="organization">Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest left-wing rebel group, agreed to a ceasefire agreement and disarmed.But the ICRC indicated that the conflict has become more fragmented since that time, with severe repercussions for civilians.“The humanitarian situation in 2025 is the result of a progressive deterioration that the ICRC has warned about since 2018,” said Olivier Dubois, the ICRC’s chief of mission in Colombia. “Civilians are experiencing increasingly serious consequences as a result.”The number of people displaced by conflict, for instance, has doubled in the last year. The ICRC found that 235,619 people were individually displaced by fighting in 2025, with 42 percent alone in the department of Norte de Santander.The number of civilians affected by mass displacement events also doubled to more than 87,000.Tuesday’s report also pointed to an increasing use of explosives and drones in Colombia’s conflict. The number of people killed by explosive devices increased by more than a third in 2025, compared with the previous year.