The Colombian army on Tuesday accused the country’s largest rebel group, FARC, of using children as human shields during recent combat in the southwestern Cauca department.
General Jorge Humberto Jerez, the commander of the army’s task force Apollo, said two left-wing FARC rebels armed with AK-47 rifles entered a house and took two children with them in order to avoid taking fire from nearby army units. The events took place in the Silvia municipality, located in Cauca department, where rebels from the FARC’s Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column were being pursued by units from the Colombian army. According to reports, the rebels involved were arrested and the children returned to their parents.
The parents of the children said they had not seen the rebels before.