This week, the country learned of terrifying information: around 50 people, including several minors, died in clashes between two dissident FARC structures in Guaviare. The event reflects at least two troubling realities: the overwhelming military capacity of these groups and the State’s inability not only to combat them, but also to maintain public order across vast regions. This is just one aspect of the criminal landscape that will be inherited by the president who replaces Gustavo Petro and who will be elected this Sunday.
The structures fighting in the township of Charras-Boquerón, approximately 140 kilometers from San Jose del Guaviare, are led by two former comrades in the ranks of the FARC and now bitter enemies determined to kill each other: Alexander Diaz Mendoza, alias “Calarca,” head of the so-called General Staff of Blocs and Fronts (EMBF), and Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, alias “Ivan Mordisco,” leader of the Central General Staff (EMC).
From the demobilized FARC guerrilla, “Calarca” and “Mordisco” are two offshoots that became hypertrophied during Petro’s administration. Like other criminal organizations such as the ELN and the Gulf Clan, they found favorable conditions to grow and expand under the shadow of the Total Peace policy, the Colombian president’s flagship proposal, which, with only days left in his term, has produced no concrete results in terms of negotiation or demobilization.
Criminal groups strengthened over four years
“Criminal groups have strengthened throughout these four years, and there are open confrontations in various regions of the country,” concludes a report by the think tank and media outlet InSight Crime titled “The Criminal Challenges Colombia’s Next President Will Inherit.” According to the publication, the new government “will have to address more than 10 fronts of confrontation between illegal groups, mainly in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Huila, Meta, Choca, Antioquia, Bolivar, Norte de Santander, Magdalena, Arauca, and Guaviare.”
It emphasizes that under President Petro’s Total Peace framework, “the process of fragmentation among illegal groups that had been underway for several years continued, especially among FARC dissident factions. Although at the beginning of the current administration these factions united to appear stronger ahead of negotiations, differences soon emerged.” That fragmentation, the report states elsewhere, was also experienced by long-standing illegal armed groups such as the ELN.
These and other groups nationwide have strengthened their military and territorial control capacities. The report cites the Conflict Responses Foundation, according to which between 2018 and 2025 the country’s main illegal armed structures increased their number of fighters by more than 110%, growing from nearly 13,000 to more than 27,000. The Gulf Clan has been the group that strengthened the most in this regard, followed by the EMBF and the EMC.
The figures reported by the Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation point in the same direction. At the beginning of 2026, it reported that as of December 2025, these structures had more than 27,000 members, including armed personnel and support networks, representing a 23.5% increase compared to December 2024. This means that more than 5,000 people joined these illegal organizations in just one year.
Everything will depend on which candidate wins
“Neither military operations, nor negotiation processes, nor surrender offers have managed to curb their recruitment capacity. The groups offer salaries and other incentives in territories where the State arrives late or does not arrive at all,” said the Foundation, which also found that 2025 was the year with the highest number of armed disputes in the last decade, such as the one reported this week in Guaviare that left 50 people dead.
Last year, confrontations between groups increased by 34%, driven by internal ruptures, new alliances, and competition for control of routes, illegal economies, and local populations. Today, there are at least 13 areas of the country under active dispute, nearly double the number that existed at the beginning of the Petro administration in 2022. There was also a sharp increase in attacks against infrastructure and civilian property (58% compared to 2024) and against the Public Force (62%). Overall, 2025 shows the highest figures since 2016.
For InSight Crime, the main consequence of the fragmentation of criminal groups in the country has been the increase in violence resulting from territorial disputes and from these organizations’ attempts to impose control over local populations. The publication points to the Catatumbo region, on the border with Venezuela, as an example of these dynamics. Since January 2025, it has been experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, with more than 100,000 people displaced by clashes between criminal groups.
But these confrontations are also the expression of other criminal dynamics such as illegal crops, drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion, all of which are part of the problematic “package” that Colombia’s new president will inherit, if the winner comes from the opposition. The ruling party’s candidate, Ivan Cepeda, has announced that his government plan would continue all of Petro’s policies.