Etiqueta: mercenarism

By Santiago Martínez and Andrés Gómez, Translated by: Clark Gudas

Ramiro* was driving to the bus terminal in Bogotá when, in the middle of a conversation, he mentioned that he wanted to go fight for Ukraine against Russia because he needed more money. Ramiro, a taxi driver, candidly confessed to his passengers that he wanted to participate in the international conflict. This kind of comment is not unheard of, and money was not his only motivation. While Ramiro spoke enthusiastically about the chance to make money, he also said, without shame, that if an acquaintance cheated him in a business deal, he would “settle the score” and then go off to war.

Beyond these motivations, whether to get rich or escape justice, there are always families that suffer for those who become mercenaries.

It seems selfish of them. Because the suffering, the anguish that we go through… not knowing if they’re okay, if they’re not, if something happened, there are no answers.

This is how Blanca Gómez describes what she feels about the disappearance of her spouse, Edgar Alonso Gómez, a man in his forties who was recruited by Russia in early 2026 while working in Poland in 2025.

Recruitment is no small matter, and there is no way to prevent it.

The radio program La Vaina, in episode 249, aired a program titled “The Colombians trapped in the Russian-Ukrainian War.” In it, Gladys Gaviria, mother of Jeiner Sánchez, a 21-year-old boy who died fighting under the Russian flag, said that nobody is stopping the recruitment, despite the death sentence it amounts to for many:

No one says anything. Because, look, when Jeiner fell, eight left our neighborhood Santo Domingo. Eight of them left, and all eight of them fell… from Aurora, from San Javier, they also went. Yeah, the working-class neighborhoods in Medellín, many left from our side, and we don’t know how many more there are.

Colombian soldiers, leveraging their years of training and combat in internal armed conflicts, with no other skills after retirement or discharge, don’t understand that when they become mercenaries, they turn into hitmen, accomplices to crimes against humanity, or cannon fodder in conflicts in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

Colombian Mercenaries Around the World

In May 2026, then-president Gustavo Petro explained that, according to government estimates, there were 7,000 Colombian mercenaries abroad. Reports supported by organizations like the UN warn that the figure far exceeds 10,000 fighters.

What transnational agencies sell to these men as a simple job opportunity hides a dynamic where countries, or companies, exploit the economic vulnerability of Colombian ex-combatants, then order them to commit acts as extreme as assassinations, like that of President Jovenel Moïse in Haiti.

On July 7, 2021, 22 Colombians took part in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse and, besides money and jewelry, also took documents. According to investigations by the outlet El País, the Haitian president was about to hand over a “list of powerful politicians and businesspeople involved in drug trafficking.”

It it troubling that Abelardo De la Espriella has spoken out in favor of hitmen:

I have instructed the Ministers of Defense and Justice to provide legal assistance to the soldiers detained in the United States for their alleged participation in the assassination of the President of Haiti, as well as financial support to their families. The just must not pay for the sinners. I want to know exactly what happened and that each individual’s responsibility is clarified. I am not the kind of president to abandon his heroes when they face hardship. I won’t leave them alone: they will have our full backing to mount their defense and for this whole situation to be clarified.

By promising help and calling the mercenaries implicated in the assassination of Jovenel Moïse “heroes,” De la Espriella helps legitimize mercenarism from the presidency, downplays the assassination of the Haitian president, and normalizes violence committed by thousands of Colombians in foreign conflicts. And that violence is not insignificant.

Reports from Human Rights Watch have denounced companies from the United Arab Emirates  for recruiting Colombians to join the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Journalistic investigations reveal that in Colombia, the company A4SI promises between 2,600 to 3,400 dollars to join the organization.

According to Mona Rishmawi, member of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, “The RSF acted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Zaghawa and Fur communities in El Fasher. These are typical elements of genocide.” This means that Colombian mercenaries who have been active in the carrying out of those objectives may be complicit in those crimes against humanity, in particular:

The extermination and persecution on ethnic, gender, and political grounds, as well as war crimes, including assassination, torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, violations of personal dignity, starvation, and attacks against civilian populations, against the wounded and sick, against those hors de combat, as well as against protected property.

Perhaps that is why Antonio*, a Colombian mercenary who was active in Sudan, did not want to continue participating in this investigation. Off the record, however, he made clear that he did not want to fight for Ukraine because of just how bloody the war is. Apparently, Antonio understood that the probability of surviving that conflict is low, and that the chances of one’s body disappearing are very high.

Colombians Missing in the Russia-Ukraine War

Jeiner Andrés Sánchez Gavíria, 21, traveled to Russia on May 10. He contacted his family only a few times after that, and nothing more was heard from him after June 21, when his brother called to inform them that Jeiner Sánchez had been “taken out” of combat, and that his body had been burned by an enemy drone.

Edgar Gómez’s situation is similar. He communicated for the final time on October 7 to say he had reported to the Russian army, mentioning that he belonged to “Unit 2, Battalion No. 3.” He has not called since.

He sent me photos in his uniform and a photo of his dog tag. It’s all I have, says Blanca.

Columbia’s Foreign Ministry, responding to a right of petition sent by this outlet regarding Colombians missing in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, responded:

The Consular Section of the Colombian Embassy in Poland has a record of 384 cases of Colombian citizens reported as missing in action in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, broken down as follows: 2022, no cases; 2023: 4 cases; 2024, 93 cases; 2025: 268 cases.

In the same response, the Foreign Ministry reported that the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defense has reported “39 Colombian citizens” who, bound by contract to the Ministry of Defense, are “missing.” It also claims that it has received requests for assistance from relatives of nearly 100 Colombian citizens who were serving in the country’s army.

On September 9, 2026, the Foreign Ministry said it had received 863 requests for consular assistance from Ukraine and 890 from Russia. All of the relatives say they have lost contact with their loved ones, and the requests for assistance focus on the repatriation of remains, locating people declared missing in combat, and locating missing people whose families have no official confirmation.

Rules That Do Not Stop Mercenarism or Its Dangers

In Colombia, under Law 11 of 1992, a mercenary is considered someone who has been recruited, locally or abroad, to fight in an armed conflict, who is motivated by personal gain, and who has been promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation considerably higher than that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and function in the armed forces of their country of origin.

But it was not until 2026 that the crimes of mercenarism were codified under the government of former president Gustavo Petro. In an attempt to stem this deadly exodus, the issuance of Law 2569 of March 17, 2026 marks a turning point in the legal system, by approving the United Nations “International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.”

This legislation is a direct response to the crisis, because it establishes the crime of mercenarism, which now carries a prison sentence of 10-15 years, and also penalizes illicit recruitment with sentences of eight to twelve years.

With this instrument, the State finally establishes criminal procedural mechanisms that allow it to investigate those who finance or train these regular fighters. It also facilitates extradition by considering mercenarism as an offense covered by the international treaties in force, which strengthens the State’s jurisdiction to pursue those involved abroad.

Enforcement of the law, however, is hampered by a rigid evidentiary standard. For a person to be classified as a mercenary under criminal law, it must be proven that they were motivated exclusively by personal gain, or a considerably higher compensation.

This has created grey areas that allow the actors of privatized violence to evade justice by claiming they were providing advisory work. And, although the law presents a crucial step forward in treating recruiters and mercenaries as criminals, it does not resolve the problem. While Colombia continues to lack opportunities after military retirement, and worse, opportunities for former members of guerilla and paramilitary organizations, the promise of material reward will keep pushing thousands of Colombians to sidestep these legal barriers. This does not only represent a danger for the mercenaries and their families, but also to national and regional security.

In recent months, there has been an increase in reports related to the possible recruitment of criminal organizations in Mexico and Colombia. This situation has raised concerns that individuals with combat experience are receiving training in the use of drones and other military technologies. The hypothesis suggests that this lethal knowledge could be used to strengthen the capabilities of these organizations in Latin America, in struggles with the Public Security Force, civilians, for territorial control, dominance of strategic corridors and drug-trafficking routes.

The State’s response in terms of prevention, apparently, does not exist. El Turbión sent a petition to the Ministry of Defense asking about the prevention of recruitment of former members of the Public Security Force as mercenaries. The ministry merely acknowledged it received the message, and forwarded the matter several times: first to the Directorate of International Relations, then to the Directorate of Veterans and Rehabilitation, which in turn declared itself incapable of serving in this capacity, and forwarded the matter to the Directorate of Human Rights and International Human Law. None of the directorates responded to any of the questions.

There was no success either with the Attorney General’s Office, which affirmed that it has no “registerable information” about investigations into mercenarism or recruitment networks. When asked about the assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, it forwarded the message to another office that never responded, and it flatly rejected to investigate what happened in Sudan, invoking the principle of territoriality, even though Colombian law allows for universal jurisdiction for genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Disappearance of Mercenaries Hits Their Families

Both the scarce material and social conditions for former combatants to build a life far from weaponry, and the lack of legal clarity, end up creating conditions in which thousands of people venture to work as hired killers in Mexican cartels, or Haiti, or participate in genocides in Sudan, or serve as cannon fodder for drones over Donetsk and Kharkiv. And although many are aware of the possibility of death, they don’t imagine that their bodies will probably disappear too, nor do they imagine the pain they cause their families.

When Jeiner Andrés Sánchez Gavíria decided to fight for Russia, he did not expect to be lied to about the money he would receive, much less about the repatriation of his body. His sister says he signed his contract right away for Russia:

In Bogotá, they gave them everything. They gave them clothing, changed their phones, they gave them everything, and the trip was excellent because everything was going well.. When they arrived there, they made them sign a contract in which… well, there’s nothing that… nothing we can ask for in terms of the repatriation of the body, or the money they promised him either. And there, the contract has a clause that says that it’s for one to five years, and they told him it was just one year…

According to Maritza, her brother Jeiner also didn’t think that the living conditions would be so difficult:

He told me in the first few days that he was okay. Then, after about 15 days, he told me it wasn’t so easy anymore. The drones. They had to fight against drones. They had to see dead bodies that had been thrown out in the open field, that they were kept, in, like, a prison, that they were mistreated, that they weren’t given food, that they were left enduring hunger and thirst.

Jeiner Andrés Sánchez Gavíria told his sister Maritza that he didn’t think he would come out alive:

June 9th was the last time that we spoke and the message was that they were going to put him on the front line, that I should pray for him… He told me that he knew he wasn’t going to leave alive.

His mother, Gladys Gómez, describes how, in the wake of his disappearance, all that she has left is the pain:

It’s anguish… I mean, if you’d had him, if you’d buried him, you’d say: ‘I buried him.’ But this way, it’s nothing, it’s more anguish, more pain.

The Russian Embassy only increases the uncertainty for the family of Edgar Alonso Gómez:

They told us in person that the person we were asking about did not appear among the dead, or the missing, or the wounded.

The disappearance is not an issue only for mercenaries recruited by Russia.

In Ukraine, Colombian bodies are disappeared by their own recruiters. Recently released testimonies of Ukrainian soldiers describe how they dispose of corpses of Colombian mercenaries using acid and fire. Former president Gustavo Petro had already warned of this degradation when he signed Law 2569 on March 17, 2026, denouncing how Colombian mercenaries are treated as an “inferior race” and used strictly as “cannon fodder.”

The gravity of the matter is intensified by journalistic investigations into intercepted emails about an alleged massacre of Colombians on the Ukrainian front, which brings to the forefront the macabre dilemma of whether we are witnessing crude war propaganda or the deliberate, silent extermination of mercenaries.

In the face of overwhelming numbers of the dead and missing, the institutional response has taken the form of different kinds of consular assistance.

Regarding Russian recruitment, the Foreign Ministry has put on its website the “Procedure for consular assistance in cases of Colombian citizens who have signed contracts for the provision of military services with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.” For Ukraine, El Turbión could only find an informative bulletin from 2024 that begins:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to reiterate that the Government of Colombia does not promote nor facilitate the enlistment of Colombian citizens in the Ukrainian army. These kinds of personal decisions are entirely voluntary and individual.

In the case of Russia, while the Foreign Ministry’s procedure meets the need of families to take immediate action by submitting requests, emails, genetic samples, and documents, the reality is that it does not offer a material or concrete way to respond to their tragedies. In practice, its work is reduced to receiving formal communications and channeling diplomatic notes that remain entirely at the timing and goodwill of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defense.

The Irony of Carrying On in Wars

Ramiro left us at the bus terminal, trusting that, given his age of 46, the Ukrainian army would keep him in the rear. He barely listened to the reports that warned him of the danger, and that his job would possibly be to kill other Colombians. As I left the taxi, I could not stop thinking that it was very ironic that Ramiro deliberately ignored that he would kill other Colombians that were fighting for Russia, and how sad it would be that he knew nothing of the conflict he would participate in.

It is also worrying that the Colombians’ lack of information about the conflicts they take part in leads fellow citizens to participate in genocides in Sudan or in assassinations, like those in Haiti. It is equally alarming that cartels, dissident groups, and paramilitary organizations are increasing their military capacity with mercenaries who survive Donetsk and Luhansk.

Colombian mercenarism, without a doubt, ends up being useful for committing acts against international humanitarian law with absolute impunity. Until the precarious economic and pension conditions of the active reserve are addressed, and those of the thousands of former combatants have promised not to return to arms, and until it is accepted that every exported former combatant is a liability for global security, Colombia will continue to establish itself as a supplier of disposable criminal forces in contemporary wars.

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