Colombia Bombing Rules: Government Appeals Limits Near Child Recruits

Colombia · Security

The ruling under appeal did not stop the bombing. It lifted an earlier suspension and told the military how to strike when children may be present.

The Colombia bombing rules now under appeal are conditions, not a ban. A Bogotá judge did suspend air strikes near recruited children on 3 September 2026. On 16 September the same judge lifted that suspension and replaced it with conditions. The government is fighting those conditions.

What the Colombia bombing rules actually say

The case grew out of an air strike on 27 August that killed three teenagers in Guaviare, a rural south-eastern province. The lawyer Ower Jimmy Borda Parra then filed a tutela on behalf of children recruited by armed groups.

A tutela is Colombia’s fast-track constitutional action, decided in days rather than years. On 3 September the 34th Family Court of Bogotá ordered the state to halt some offensive air operations. The order covered places where reasonably verifiable information showed children were present.

The government challenged that interim order and lost, on 10 September. Then came the judge’s final first-instance ruling of 16 September, which is the one now on appeal. It did two things at once. It lifted the suspension, and it refused to impose an absolute prohibition.

In place of a ban the court set out a reinforced duty of precaution in five parts. Strengthen the verification of intelligence. Write that information expressly into the legal and operational assessment. Weigh the risk to the lives of the children. Examine less harmful alternatives that achieve a comparable military advantage. And apply rigorously the principles of distinction (telling fighters from civilians), precaution and proportionality.

The court also held that a child’s mere presence in a camp does not by itself make that child a lawful target. It did not require judicial authorisation for individual strikes, and did not create a general prohibition.

What the government filed, and why

The presidency, together with the defence, justice and interior ministries, lodged an impugnación. That is the ordinary appeal against a first-instance tutela ruling, and it must be filed within three days of notification. The Bogotá daily El Tiempo first reported the filing on Monday 21 September.

El Tiempo reported four arguments from the document. The armed forces already follow the necessary protocols. They have technology and human sources to establish who is at a target site. Air operations already pass through several filters, including human rights officers and operational lawyers. And the defence ministry already observes international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the treaty behind the International Criminal Court.

President Abelardo de la Espriella, in office since 7 August, set out the political logic in a televised address on 13 September. He said the government respects judicial decisions but will contest them. He drew a line between judicial review and courts taking the place of the military chain of command. He also argued that armed groups must not gain immunity by keeping children in their camps.

The defence minister, retired army general Jorge Eduardo Mora, spoke to senators. He said none of the roughly 370 early warnings from the Ombudsman’s Office, the state human rights body, gives exact coordinates. They cover areas of kilometres, even hundreds of kilometres, he said.

Mora faces a Senate censure motion over the Guaviare operation in which three recruited minors died. The vote is due on Wednesday 23 September.

The numbers, and what they do and do not show

The figure driving this litigation came from the director of the national forensic institute. He spoke to the radio station Blu Radio on 31 August. He said 458 people died in military operations under former president Gustavo Petro, up to 31 May 2026. Of those, 62 were minors. Under Iván Duque, Petro’s predecessor, the figures were 367 deaths and 42 minors.

The count has two limits. The count covers military operations generally, not bombings specifically, and it runs only to 31 May. The director said he had no breakdown separating bombing deaths from combat deaths.

Under the current government, an operation in Guaviare on 27 August left ten dead. Three of them were identified as minors aged 15, 15 and 16. One further minor died on 10 August in a strike on the National Liberation Army (ELN), a guerrilla group, in Catatumbo. No consolidated figure for the current government has been reported, and any comparison sets almost four years against about six weeks.

The law underneath the argument

Recruiting anyone under 18 into an armed group is a crime in Colombia. In June 2026 Congress approved a law raising the prison term to between 40 and 50 years.

International humanitarian law is where the hard part sits. A recruited child who takes direct part in hostilities loses civilian protection while doing so. But distinction, proportionality and feasible precautions still apply, and presence in a camp is not the same as direct participation. The Bogotá court turned that gap into a checklist. The government says the checklist is unworkable in the field.

The Bogotá case is not the only one. Judges in Arauca, San José del Guaviare and Cúcuta have issued orders of their own. The 16 September ruling addressed only the Bogotá suspension. Air operations therefore remain constrained elsewhere.

For readers with staff or operations in rural Colombia, the effect is narrow. The appeal does not by itself change the security picture on the ground. What it changes is how much paperwork sits behind each strike, and how exposed commanders are afterwards. Those changes act slowly, shaping the conflict over months rather than days.

More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

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This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief