Non-international armed conflicts in Colombia

Despite intermittent lulls, the situation continues to meet the threshold of an Additional Protocol II-type Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC). Recurrent armed engagements leading to multiple casualties and displacement indicate a sustained level of intensity, and the ELN’s decentralized yet complex hierarchical structure and war-front discipline system reflects a sufficient degree of organization and responsible command. Financed through the cross-border drug trade, the ELN deploys assault rifles, explosives, mortars and drones and employs tactics including mortaring, sabotage, ambushes, roadblocks and sniper attacks, demonstrating a capacity for sustained and concerted military operations. The group also exercises military and social control over parts of Catatumbo and Chocó that prevents the government from exercising its effective authority.

The confrontation between the Colombian National Army and the EGC constitutes a pre-existing Additional Protocol II–type NIAC. Recurrent clashes and prolonged operations, including air and drone strikes and the use of assault rifles and explosive devices, together with resulting casualties and displacement indicate a sufficient level of intensity. The EGC comprises political, military and economic branches. Its armed wing operates through multilayered, decentralized cells, enforces discipline via internal rules and social controls, and trains members by former guerrilleros, demonstrating the requisite organization and responsible command. Through a system of unpaid informers and checkpoints, the group maintains and has expanded territorial control across multiple departments and urban centres tied to its illicit economy, enabling sustained and concerted military operations.

A pre-existing Additional Protocol II–type NIAC between Colombia and the EMC has continued in 2026. Intensity is reflected in recurrent engagements, involving heavy artillery, air and drone strikes, explosives and remotely piloted devices, heightened aerial bombardments, and the use of human shields, alongside casualties and persistent displacement. The EMC – the largest FARC-EP dissident group, formed in 2017 and self-identifying as its successor – combines decentralized leadership across blocs and fronts with central coordination, internal disciplinary rules and social control, systematic training, alliances, financing from criminal economies, communication, and recruitment practices, thereby meeting the organization criterion. The group holds and has expanded control over strategic corridors and Amazonian areas, sometimes assuming traditionally governmental functions.

An Additional Protocol II–type NIAC between the Colombian National Army and the CDF persists despite ongoing peace talks. Formed in 2017 from FARC-EP dissidents and rebranded in 2020, the CDF focuses on drug trafficking at the Colombia-Ecuador border and operates mainly in Putumayo. Evidence of intensity includes recurrent (though intermittent) armed engagements; continued government forces deployments; the CDF’s use of military-grade weapons, explosives and drones; casualties; and displacement dynamics. In organizational terms, the CDF maintains a hierarchical military structure with specialized units, training and disciplinary rules under a central command. The CDF allies with other actors, controls rural territory where it establishes bases, and finances operations through the drug trade.

The pre-existing NIAC between the EGC and the ELN continued throughout the reporting period. Originating in a 2016 territorial dispute in Bolívar after FARC-EP demobilization, and despite a 2019 non-aggression understanding, the conflict expanded to departments such as Chocó, Norte de Santander and Antioquia. Recurrent clashes over military and social control as well as illegal activities involved explosive devices, sniper fire and drone attacks, causing casualties and displacement and satisfying the required intensity threshold. In organizational terms, both groups maintain structured command and logistical capacity enabling planned and prolonged military operations and the exercise of territorial control. ELN actions sustained territorial control in Catatumbo, while the EGC expanded its presence across numerous municipalities.

Tensions between the ELN and the EMBF, which split from the EMC in April 2024, escalated in late 2024 over control of illicit economies in Catatumbo and adjoining areas. In mid-January 2025, hostilities led to severe civilian harm, mass displacement and confinement, and further escalated throughout January 2026. The EMBF exhibits articulated leadership, identifiable commanders for its armed wing, majority-vote decision making, trained fighters, disciplinary capacity, financing through criminal enterprises including coca, a unified public voice, and territorial control in Catatumbo and parts of Antioquia and southern Bolívar. Since mid-January 2025, intensity of the violence and the parties’ organization have met the threshold of a NIAC between the EMBF and the ELN.

The pre-existing NIAC between the EMC and Frente 57 has persisted, driven by contests over strategic drug-trafficking corridors, while the EMC maintained territorial footholds in Colombia and Venezuela. Following FARC-EP demobilisation, the EMC formed in 2017 as an umbrella of ex-FARC-EP fighters, and later splintering resulted in the creation of Frente 57 in November 2023. Despite the further split of EMBF from EMC in April 2024, hostilities between EMC and Frente 57 were recurrent and geographically dispersed from May 2024 through September 2025, with drone-enabled bombardments, vehicle burnings, multi-day engagements, power outages and disruption to infrastructure, as both sides employed heavy weaponry including bomb-armed drones, satisfying the requisite level of intensity. Although no further specific armed clashes were reported after September 2025, the conflict did not end, given the prevailing risk of resumption, as confirmed by an April 2026 report noting the continued presence of EMC-aligned groups and Frente 57 in the disputed areas of Cauca and Valle del Cauca. Both groups display the required degree of organization. Despite its limited numbers, Frente 57 combines a leadership structure — evidenced by its capacity to absorb repeated, targeted captures of senior and mid-level commanders between mid-2025 and May 2026 while maintaining continuity of command through immediate replacements — with control of key corridors to the Pacific and municipalities in northern Cauca and Valle del Cauca, issues centralised communications via its website and social media, and imposes recommendations on the civilian population, evidencing sufficient organization.

Fuelled by territorial competition for cocaine production and trafficking, the pre-existing NIAC between the EMC and the EGC continued throughout 2025 and 2026. Although intensity had peaked in 2024, fighting remained recurrent and geographically dispersed, with clashes reported across departments including Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Caquetá and Arauca, alongside continued heightened civilian displacement. Hostilities included a five-day territorial confrontation in Antioquia department between 18 and 22 November 2025, and a drone-enabled clash lasting over twenty-four hours in Remedios, Antioquia, between 28 and 29 November 2025, in which explosives-laden drones were deployed. Hostilities more broadly featured explosive devices, long-range firearms, hand grenades, mines and drone-enabled airstrikes and aerial bombardment. Alliances remained fluid, with temporary alignments against a common rival, and simultaneous confrontations among the EMC, EGC and ELN continued to drive civilian displacement. The EGC retained its territorial stronghold in the Gulf of Urabá, spanning Antioquia, Chocó and Córdoba, where displacement figures remained high through the end of 2025. Both parties are sufficiently organized under IHL.

Originating from the post-2016 power vacuum left by the FARC-EP and first concentrated over coca-rich northeastern Catatumbo, the NIAC between the EMC and the ELN has continued throughout 2025 and 2026 across coca-rich territory and key trafficking routes in Arauca, Antioquia, Catatumbo and Chocó, with occasional joint fighting in Bolívar against the EGC. Fighting peaked in January and March 2025, with the March clashes reaching the highest intensity recorded since 2022, before growing more sporadic through the rest of 2025 and into 2026, though a high risk of resumption persists. Although both armed groups have witnessed fragmentation, a faction within each has continued to fight. In April 2024 the EMC split, with the Mordisco-led faction continuing hostilities against the ELN while the splintering EMBF engaged in talks with the government, and the ELN fractured in May 2024, with the Comuneros del Sur pursuing a separate peace process with the authorities. Despite these changes, both the EMC and the ELN continue to present a sufficient degree of organization.

The pre-existing NIAC between the EMC and SM continued during 2025 and 2026. Both groups are post-2016 FARC-EP dissidents. SM formed in 2019 and splintered in November 2024, with the Pacific Guerrilleros and Border Commands reconstituted as the CNEB, while the initial SM remains active. Hostilities have met intensity criteria and centred on control of coca areas and trafficking corridors, with recurrent clashes from southwest Colombia to the Caquetá–Putumayo border and the Pacific coast of Nariño, and, in March 2026, an official warning of potential three-way confrontation between SM, the EMC and the EMBF in Huila department. The EMC employs armed drones alongside small arms, grenades and mines, and maintains territorial footholds in Colombia and Venezuela. SM uses small arms, machine guns, improvised explosive devices and anti-personnel mines. Reporting on discrete engagements during 2025 and 2026 has been limited, and the impact of the 2024 split within SM on overall violence remains unclear. Leadership, command structures and cross-border logistics on both sides fulfil the organization threshold, with SM displaying a stable and experienced leadership and command structure, composed of regional factions with defined geographic areas of operations, although the impact of the November 2024 split on SM’s internal organizational structure remains uncertain. The alliance between the SM and the ELN presumably ended after the ELN assassinated an SM leader in August 2025.

After the EMBF split from the EMC in April 2024, hostilities between these FARC-EP dissident structures escalated. January 2025 clashes in Calamar (Guaviare) caused dozens of casualties, child recruitment and displacement, yet did not, at that stage, satisfy the intensity threshold. From May 2025, the EMC 44th Front (Amazonas Bloc) imposed an armed blockade in Guaviare, and fighting resumed in early June amid ongoing contests for territorial control, with reports of large-scale civilian confinement. Engagements continued to intensify into 2026. The violence is driven by disputes over coca cultivation and trafficking routes, alongside extortion and other illicit economies. Both groups are sufficiently organized under IHL, and the violence now amounts to protracted armed violence, establishing a NIAC between them.