World News

By Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO, June 19 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka is battling the worst outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue fever in years, with more than 44,000 cases and 28 deaths recorded since January, an official said on Friday, putting public hospitals under strain.

Dengue is common during Sri Lanka’s monsoon season, but unplanned urbanisation coupled with damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah, which hit the island nation in late November, has worsened the outbreak this year, authorities said.

The number of dengue cases nearly doubled from 5,651 in April to 10,638 in the first two weeks of June, data from the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU) showed.

“We noticed this increase after the cyclone,” Dr. Prashila Samaraweera, consultant community physician and NDCU spokesperson, told Reuters.

“A lot of debris was in our environment, so we noticed a lot of mosquito breeding places, and our entomological indices were high from that time.”

With 51,000 cases recorded in the whole of last year, the rate of infections has risen sharply, Dr. Samaraweera said. Infections are likely to increase for at least two more weeks before tapering off, she added.

SURGE COULD PUT HEALTH FACILITIES UNDER SEVERE STRAIN

A further uptick in patient numbers could put public hospitals under severe strain, Sri Lanka’s health minister Nalinda Jayatissa warned on Thursday.

More than half the cases are from the western region of the country, including 9,429 cases from commercial capital Colombo. Eight other districts have reported more than 2,000 patients since the start of the year.

The 28 deaths include five children.

Patient numbers for this year could end up matching the last major outbreak in 2019, authorities have warned, when Sri Lanka recorded over 105,000 dengue patients.

Schools, homes, construction sites, and public buildings are being cleaned up during a special program launched by Sri Lanka’s health authorities and other public officials till next Monday.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Jan Harvey)

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LONDON (AP) — A British court sent two men to prison Friday for setting fire to property linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a plot orchestrated by a mysterious Russian-speaking figure.

Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Stanislav Carpiuc, a 27-year-old Romanian citizen, were jailed for 7 years and 2 years, respectively, after being found guilty of conspiracy to damage property by fire.

The men targeted a car and two properties linked to Starmer over three nights in May 2025 on the orders of a Russian-speaking figure going by the name of “El Money,” according to prosecutors. El Money communicated on the messaging app Telegram with Lavrynovych. Their identity was never revealed and they were not charged.

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BEIJING (AP) — Dragon boat races, lion dances and other festivities marked the Dragon Boat Festival on Friday across mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The more than 2,000-year-old holiday is best known for its sporting events, but its origins are rooted in ancient beliefs about health, protection and harmony with nature.

“The fact that this holiday has been preserved for thousands of years shows how much we value our traditional customs,” said Meng Dongmei, a retired resident of Beijing’s Tongzhou district.

Meng said her family observes the holiday through a variety of traditional customs. They prepare zongzi, the sticky rice dumplings associated with the festival, and children wear five-colored bracelets believed to ward off evil.

“We also learned online about a traditional recipe using mugwort leaves, red dates, brown sugar and ginger to boil eggs,” Meng said. “We heard that it could help ward off illness and keep people healthy throughout the year, so we hope that through this festival our family will enjoy good health.”

Beijing’s 2026 celebrations will continue through the weekend at the capital’s Grand Canal.

The three-day event features men’s, women’s and mixed dragon boat races over distances of 100, 200 and 500 meters. Teams from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Guangdong will compete throughout the holiday weekend.

More than 1,000 athletes and 200,000 spectators are expected to gather for the event, organizers said in a press release.

“The competition helped strengthen our team spirit,” said Li Maoshan, a participant in Friday’s races. “It also gave us an opportunity to demonstrate the spirit of perseverance and hard work.”

Among the cultural features during Beijing’s Dragon Boat Festival were demonstrations of Wing Chun martial arts, a market featuring traditional handicrafts and a performance in which dancers mimic the movements of a lion.

Activities were intended to highlight cultural exchanges between northern and southern China, officials said.

Friday’s lion dance was presented by a group of performers from Guangdong province in southern China. “Wherever there is a festive occasion, you’ll find dragon and lion dances,” said He Weihong, founder of the group. “Dragon boat racing and dragon-and-lion dancing are inseparable, as they are both part of our intangible cultural heritage.”

The festival’s roots run deeper than sporting competitions. It is widely associated with the ancient poet Qu Yuan, who according to legend drowned himself more than 2,000 years ago.

Tradition holds that people raced out in boats to search for him and threw rice into the river so fish would not eat his body. That story is often linked to both today’s dragon boat races and the zongzi still prepared by families across China.

“The Dragon Boat Festival is probably the richest and most diverse of all traditional Chinese festivals,” said Tsinghua University’s history professor Liu Xiaofeng. “Across different regions, people developed a wide variety of traditions based on ideas connected to the summer solstice and the balance of yin and yang.”

The holiday falls in the fifth month of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, around the time of the summer solstice. Ancient Chinese viewed this as a period when insects, poisonous creatures and disease became more prevalent, giving rise to a wide range of customs aimed at preserving health and warding off misfortune.

“At its core, the Dragon Boat Festival is about disease prevention, warding off evil and maintaining health,” Liu said.

Some people wear sachets containing medicinal herbs during the festival. Others fumigate their homes with smoke, a practice intended to prevent disease by driving out things considered harmful.

“Chinese people have traditionally placed a special emphasis on happiness, well-being and living in peace and safety,” Liu said. “Nearly all of China’s major festivals are connected in some way to these aspirations.”

Participants in Hong Kong’s dragon boat races on Friday wore costumes including a cartoon version of Chinese Taoist deity Ne Zha.

Guided by the thunderous beat of their drummers, crews pulled their paddles through the water in unison, each boat surging toward the finish line as spectators cheered them on. Others watched the races at home as they enjoyed zongzi with their families.

“Today more than 64% of China’s population lives in urban areas and people’s lifestyles have been transformed,” Liu said. “In a large city, it’s difficult to celebrate the festival the way people once did in rural communities. Festivals evolve along with the times.”

Bao Nari, a Beijing resident who spent years away from home while she studied in Japan, said that while boat races were not part of her childhood celebrations, other long-standing Dragon Boat Festival traditions like wearing five-colored bracelets were passed down through her family.

“After coming back, I’m impressed by how much cultural development has progressed here,” Bao said. “This cultural heritage has become deeply rooted in our hearts and it inspires our generation to be more confident.”

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AP video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing and reporter Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s federal police executed search and seizure warrants targeting a high-ranking senator and friend of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday as part of a fraud and graft probe that has ensnared several politicians ahead of October’s general election.

Police are looking into suspicious payments to Sen. Jaques Wagner, the leader of Lula’s Workers’ Party in the Senate, as part of investigations into the shut down Banco Master and its disgraced former CEO, Daniel Vorcaro.

Wagner is the first major Lula ally to be hit by the sprawling scandal that has already engulfed presidential hopeful Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, among others. The scandal is expected to loom large in the upcoming elections.

In a statement that did not name suspects, police said they were executing 18 search and seizure warrants in the states of Bahia and Sao Paulo and the Federal District for facts that may constitute the crimes of passive corruption, active corruption and money laundering.

Court documents signed by Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça on Wednesday and obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday – which cited the suspects – authorized the search.

Investigators found indications that the senator may have received undue economic benefits, including the purchase of a luxury apartment in Salvador, valued at around 2.45 million reais (approximately $470,000), the court documents said.

Investigators are also examining whether Wagner used his position in Congress to advance issues of interest to Banco Master, including payroll loans and deposit insurance rules, according to the court documents.

Police seized approximately $50,000 in Brasilia as part of Thursday’s operation. Local media reported that those funds were found at an address or addresses linked to Wagner.

Questioned on the funds in an interview with Brazil’s major broadcaster Band on Thursday, Wagner said he had nothing to hide and had never received money from anyone with ties to Banco Master.

Wagner also denied any significant dealings with Vorcaro, the former head of Banco Master who is currently in jail. “My relationship with Daniel Vorcaro is practically nonexistent… I met Daniel only twice,” he said.

In a statement late Thursday, Wagner’s press team denied having acted on behalf of Banco Master, said the cash seized was legally obtained, and that the apartment never formed part of the senator’s assets.

Brazil’s Central Bank shut down Banco Master, whose assets topped $16 billion, in November.

Vorcaro, who is at the center of the investigations, was arrested in March and has since tried to strike a plea bargain deal with authorities.

Brazil’s federal police estimates the bank’s total fraud at approximately 12 billion reais ($2.3 billion). The case remains under investigation by the country’s federal police and Supreme Court.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The mother of a teenage girl who died after doctors in the Dominican Republic delayed treating her for cancer because she was pregnant is challenging the country’s strict abortion ban.

Civil society groups including a Christian organization joined the challenge, arguing that the ban violates the rights to life, health, dignity and equality, and that such protections should be extended to pregnant girls and women.

The challenge was filed Wednesday in the country’s Constitutional Court.

The Dominican Republic has one of the strictest abortion bans in the region, criminalizing it without exception and regardless of circumstance. Women face up to two years in prison for having an abortion, while doctors or midwives could face five to 20 years.

“My daughter died because she was denied the medical care she needed. No other mother should have to go through this,” Rosa Herminia Hernández said in a statement.

Rosaura Almonte died in 2012 from leukemia while three weeks pregnant. She was 16 years old, according to the court filing.

The challenge seeks that abortions be allowed in rape or incest cases; when the life or health of a woman or girl is in danger; or when a fetus has fatal abnormalities.

“This action seeks something very simple: that no woman or girl should have to choose between her life, her health and the law,” attorney Patricia Santana Nina said in a statement.

At least 67,455 abortions were recorded from 2019 through late 2024 in the public health sector, according to government data. It did not differentiate between spontaneous and induced abortions.

Meanwhile, from June 2017 to October 2022, prosecutors filed 62 criminal cases for abortion and 16 cases for attempted abortion. The Prosecutor General’s Office has stopped publishing such data since November 2022.

“Is it legitimate to maintain a permanent criminal threat against women in medical emergencies solely to legally express a moral stance?” the challenged filed Wednesday stated.

In 2023, a woman with three children, one of whom was product of a rape, had an incomplete and spontaneous abortion while pregnant, according to the challenge. It noted that authorities detained her for 10 days in inhumane conditions despite her condition, adding that she did not receive adequate medical care.

“The woman went to a health center seeking care and ended up being deprived of her freedom,” it stated.

Human rights activists say that it’s often health providers who report women to authorities.

There are no reliable statistics on how many women in the Dominican Republic have died during or after a clandestine abortion.

In 2024, at least 585 girls from 11 to 14 years old became mothers, according to government data. Meanwhile, at least 681 rapes were reported from January to July 2025, with activists noting that unreported cases are much higher.

The challenge noted that the ban worsens existing inequalities: women with resources can seek private medical care in or outside the country, while those who are impoverished face higher health risks and are more exposed to criminal prosecution.

“The women who are persecuted often share conditions of socioeconomic vulnerability, job insecurity, low educational level, or migratory status,” the challenge read.

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By Andrew Hay

June 18 (Reuters) – New Mexico legislators probing Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday subpoenaed U.S. Attorneys’ offices in three states and the U.S. Virgin Islands for information on whether they chose not to prosecute the late sex offender after investigating his activities.

New Mexico’s “Truth Commission” on Epstein approved subpoenas of the offices in southern Florida, South Carolina, the eastern and western districts of Michigan and the U.S. Virgin Islands in search of evidence that might show internal communication on decisions not to press charges against the late financier, the group’s chair told reporters.

The requests expand scrutiny beyond Epstein’s 2007-2008 non-prosecution agreement with then-Florida U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to prosecutors around the country who may have possessed information about his alleged crimes and chosen not to act.

“We have information that there were investigations in each of these spaces into the activities of Jeffrey Epstein,” New Mexico State Representative Andrea Romero, a Democrat and chair of the investigative committee, told reporters on a video call.

The U.S. Department of Justice, and the five U.S. Attorneys’ offices subpoenaed, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The summons, plus four additional subpoenas issued to New Mexico state agencies on Thursday, brought to around 23 the number of subpoenas the Truth Commission has issued to law enforcement agencies, financial institutions and other entities.

The commission, the first of its kind in the country, aims to identify officials who may have known of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of girls and women and turned a blind eye.

The investigation could have international significance if it can find evidence public figures knew of or took part in abuse, and New Mexico’s attorney general pursues prosecutions. The committee is set to publish an interim report by the end of July.

Epstein was found dead in a New York prison cell in 2019, his death ruled a suicide, after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged him with sex trafficking of minors.

Rachel Benavidez, 52, a survivor of alleged abuse at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, applauded Thursday’s subpoenas as a means to expose possible corruption involving individuals who held, or currently hold, positions of power.

“Increasingly, the public recognizes that protecting powerful individuals at the expense of victims is unacceptable,” Benavidez, a registered nurse, said on the video call. 

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 18 (Reuters) – Detainees at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center have been relocated to other facilities, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said on Thursday, citing the arrival of the hurricane season.

Here are some details:

• “As we enter into hurricane season, ICE and the state of Florida have moved illegal aliens from the soft sided facility,” an ICE spokesperson said in an email.

• Florida’s top emergency management official, Kevin Guthrie, said the detention center as such remained open but was “always designed to be temporary.”

• Guthrie said he had not seen ICE’s statement before it was reported by the press.

• ICE had held an average of ‌about ⁠1,400 detainees at the facility from October 1, 2025, through early April of this year, according to statistics from the agency.

• The New York Times reported in May that Florida intended to shut down the controversial federal migrant detention center.

• ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has been at the heart of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has been condemned by rights groups as violating free speech and due process rights.

• Rights groups say the crackdown has created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, and led to concerns of racial profiling.

• Trump and Republican advocates of the crackdown, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, say it aims to curb illegal immigration and improve domestic security.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s Communist Party has approved an emergency economic package featuring unprecedented free-market measures aimed at opening up the struggling island’s economy following heightened pressure from the United States.

While the full document has not been released, here are some of the proposals, based on statements by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other officials.

Measures are expected to further decentralize Cuba’s state-run economy. Under the island’s current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold and how the country’s resources are allocated.

Currently, only state agencies and banks can exchange currencies, though many people rely on the informal market.

Legislation has been introduced to reduce the number of ministries from 27 to 21 for greater efficiency.

The measures would give municipalities greater authority to approve businesses operating within their jurisdictions and to manage relations with economic actors, including state-owned enterprises, cooperatives and private companies. Municipalities also would be allowed to import and export goods and manage their own foreign-currency revenue. Cuba has 168 municipalities across its 15 provinces.

Companies would be allowed to design their own pay systems, use and distribute profits with fewer restrictions, import and export goods, and enter into partnerships with private businesses and cooperatives.

The reforms also would broaden the range of activities that state-owned companies are permitted to undertake. Cuba has about 2,000 state-owned enterprises.

Under the proposed changes, businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, would be allowed to import and export goods directly rather than through state-run entities that currently oversee the process and set fees.

The measures also would provide incentives for the import of inputs and raw materials used in production.

Cuba’s post-revolution rationing system long guaranteed access to basic products at low, controlled prices. However, upcoming reforms will gradually phase out these subsidies, moving food and other goods to market pricing.

Recent U.S. sanctions against Cuba’s business conglomerate Gaesa have forced historic hotel chains like Meliá and Iberostar to suspend contracts with their Cuban counterparts. New measures include finding new ways to utilize the island’s nearly abandoned infrastructure.

Díaz-Canel has said the emergency plan and the policy document prepared by the Communist Party’s Central Committee were shaped by the experiences of China and Vietnam, two communist countries that have introduced market-oriented economic reforms while maintaining one-party rule.

The announcement of the new economic measures follows months of mounting U.S. pressure and high-level talks between the two countries, which have included former President Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro.

The United States has long restricted trade with and travel to Cuba in efforts to get the Cuban government to release all political prisoners, end political and religious repression and open its economy to private U.S. investment.

The Trump administration has ramped up that pressure in recent months, imposing a fuel embargo on the island and indicting Raúl Castro in connection with the 1996 downing of two civilian planes operated by Miami exiles.

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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday lashed out at members of Israel’s government, saying that the country is deeply isolated and its leaders have failed to appreciate American diplomatic and military support.

The comments deepened a rift that has emerged between the two allies over the interim deal reached by the United States and Iran to end their war.

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said during a a news briefing at the White House. “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”

Israel and the U.S. jointly launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, closely coordinating the more than monthlong military operation.

But disagreements quickly emerged following a preliminary April 8 ceasefire agreement, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing to continue the campaign and Trump moving to wind down a war that was deeply unpopular in the U.S. and rattled the global economy.

While Netanyahu has been careful not to openly criticize this week’s ceasefire deal, some members of his Cabinet have been more outspoken. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads a small ultranationalist party, this week declared that Israel is not “bound” by Trump’s agreement and said it would not cave in to international pressure.

Vance noted that Netanyahu has not publicly criticized Trump, but he accused unnamed members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet of being ungrateful. He said Israel has few friends in the international community and protected itself with large quantities of weapons paid for by the United States.

Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Vance’s statement.

In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Netanyahu, claimed credit for Israel’s existence and has described the Israeli leader as “ crazy.” He sidelined Israel throughout the negotiations, and criticized Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.

In his first comments on the newly signed memorandum of understanding, Netanyahu on Thursday said Israel’s military will stay in a zone of territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon “as long as Israel’s security needs require it.” The comments threatened to undermine the deal, which calls for a halt in all fighting and respect for Lebanon’s territorial integrity.

Netanyahu, however, noted it was important “to maintain the important relationship with our American friends who fought shoulder to shoulder with us, and we greatly appreciate that.”

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BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — The memories of Colombia’s six decades of armed conflict are still like open wounds etched on its victims’ bodies and minds.

For Blanca Nubia Monroy, it’s a black-and-white scale of justice tattooed on her forearm, identical to the one used to identify her 19-year-old son’s body after he was kidnapped and killed by Colombian soldiers in 2008.

For Sigifredo López, it’s flashbacks from the seven years he was held captive by guerrillas in the South American country’s dense jungles and the trauma of surviving after his companions were massacred in 2007.

Both have radically different views of who should win Colombia’s presidency on Sunday, with Monroy throwing her support behind peace activist Iván Cepeda and López backing Trump-endorsed Abelardo de la Espriella, who has promised a scourge on crime.

But their fear is the same: Returning to a more violent past.

“It all takes a toll, both physically and emotionally,” said López. “Emotionally, there’s the fear that still simmers deep down, something you don’t openly express, the fear that everything we’ve already lived through could happen again.”

In Colombia’s most polarized presidential election in years, voters will choose between de la Espriella and Cepeda – two candidates with sharply different visions for how to find peace in a country long marked by war.

The armed struggle between Marxist guerrillas, Colombian military forces and right-wing paramilitaries has resulted in more than 10 million people — one in five Colombians — becoming victims of conflict, according to a government registry documenting killings, kidnappings, forced displacement and more.

The trauma of war and the fight for peace are embedded in Colombian politics. Despite a 2016 peace pact with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, conflict rages in many parts of the Andean nation, becoming a defining theme in Sunday’s vote.

Polarization within Colombian society over how to handle violence has “been brewing for decades,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, Bogotá-based deputy Latin America director of International Crisis Group.

“Increasingly on both sides, there’s an us and a them. That’s very dangerous in a country like Colombia with a long history of political violence. … The spark could light at any moment.”

On one side is Cepeda, who has pledged to continue Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” agenda of negotiating peace pacts with a range of criminal groups, from drug mafias to insurgent fighters. That strategy sought to rewire how Colombia deals with conflict, but has largely failed, stoking a rebuke as armed groups have taken advantage of ceasefires to grow in strength.

On the other is de la Espriella, a lawyer who has promised an all-out offensive on crime, echoing El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s war on gangs. While Bukele’s crackdown has drawn attention across the region for sharply cutting homicide rates, it also fueled allegations of human rights abuses.

The 67-year-old Monroy is reminded of the civilian toll from past military offensives every time she thinks of her son, Julián Oviedo Monroy, or looks at the tattoo on her arm.

Her son, who had dreamed of joining Colombia’s military to lift his family out of poverty, disappeared in 2008 along with other poor young men on the fringes of Bogotá. Months later, his body was unearthed in a clandestine grave in the conflict-torn northeast. His body was identified by his tattoo.

“It’s like still having him here,” she said, looking down at the tattoo she got as an homage to her son and his photo that she keeps in her wallet.

Monroy’s son became one of 6,402 victims in one of the worst atrocities of Colombia’s conflict. Colombian military officers carried out extrajudicial executions against civilians in a scandal known as “false positives” carried out largely between 2002–2008 under ex-President Álvaro Uribe. Officials then falsely said the murdered civilians were enemy combatants killed in the war with FARC rebels.

Around a dozen high-ranking security officers later acknowledged they killed Monroy’s son and asked for forgiveness in a peace tribunal established after the 2016 peace pact to unearth the ugly truths of the war — a court that de la Espriella has promised to dismantle.

Monroy criticized the mounting violence under incumbent president Petro, saying Cepeda would have to come down with a heavier hand on criminal groups.

But what outweighed her criticism was fear of the military campaign promised by de la Espriella, who has vowed to wipe out “anyone who I’ve declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats.”

“God willing, this man doesn’t come to power, because ‘false positives’ will become a reality again,” she said of de la Espriella.

For López, 62, the fear is returning to the “hell” he lived in for seven years from 2002-2009 when he was kidnapped by FARC guerrillas and held captive in the jungles they controlled.

López was working as a local assemblyman in western Colombia at a time when the rebels had declared politicians military targets. They kidnapped him and 11 other lawmakers.

López was being held in solitary confinement in 2007 when his companions were massacred by rebels. He heard the gunshots echo over the rebel camp, a memory that haunts him. The case turned López into a symbol — a survivor of the FARC’s kidnapping of over 21,000 people over five decades of conflict.

Now in Cali, the city where he was kidnapped, he lives with a state-appointed security detail because of threats against his life. He’s watched with fear over the past four years as violence has mounted. Because of that, López, a self-declared leftist, said de la Espriella has his support.

“Colombia is being kidnapped,” López said. “I’m with Abelardo because his priority is to restore safety to Colombians. He understands ‘total peace’ isn’t won by negotiating with criminals, but by exercising the legitimate force of the state.”

Under current president Petro, armed groups have used weapons like drones to wage war, bombings have racked up a civilian toll and one presidential candidate was assassinated in June 2025. In May, the International Red Cross said the impact of armed conflict on civilians in Colombia over the past year had reached the worst point in a decade.

This week, the country’s largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), announced a temporary ceasefire in order to not interfere in Colombia’s elections. Other criminal groups made no such promises.

With the wave of violence, López said, “victims are being revictimized.”

Just as Monroy fears what could come from a sharp swerve to the right, López worries about what could happen if Colombia continues on its current path.

“My fear is for the new generation, that the same thing that happened to me could happen to them if the country keeps being handed over to guerrillas and organized crime,” López said.

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