A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The Republic of Sudan in northeast Africa claims that nearly two dozen mercenaries from Colombia were killed in November fighting in the Sudanese civil war. The news took many Colombians by surprise, but as John Otis reports, a growing number of Colombians are fighting and dying in conflicts all over the world.
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UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #2: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: That's the sound of government soldiers in Sudan, rifling through the papers of a Colombian mercenary, who they claim went missing in action following a drone attack in the Darfur region. In a video posted online, the soldiers display the passport of Christian Lombana, a former Colombian army soldier who they say was fighting for Sudanese rebels.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
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OTIS: Later, they called one of Lombana's relatives back in Colombia to tell her what happened. All told, 22 Colombian mercenaries were killed, according to the Sudanese government, which quickly received an apology from Colombia. But with conflicts raging in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere, experienced former soldiers are in high demand, and Colombia has a surplus of them, thanks to the many decades its army and police have been battling Marxist rebels and drug traffickers.
JEREMY MCDERMOTT: It's not just the training, but it's the combat experience. And this is where the Colombians are far and away ahead of most militaries in the world.
OTIS: That's Jeremy McDermott, co-founder of InSight Crime, a group that investigates organized crime in Latin America. He says there are very few well-paying jobs in Colombia for ex-soldiers. That's why some accept offers to fight abroad, often for just a few thousand dollars per month.
MCDERMOTT: They are very cheap because, you know, if you wanted to hire a British or an American with anything like the kind of combat experience that the Colombians have got, you are having to double that number and then some.
OTIS: But it can all go very wrong.
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OTIS: In 2021, police in Haiti rounded up 26 Colombians accused of assassinating that country's president, Jovenel Moise. The detainees claimed to have been hired as security guards and said they were duped into taking part in the killing. One of the Colombians was sentenced to life in prison. Former Colombian soldiers have also ended up working for Mexican drug cartels. Others thought they were headed for security jobs in Dubai, only to end up fighting for anti-government militias in Sudan.
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OTIS: In an interview with the Colombian news site La Silla Vacia, one of the Colombians in Sudan said, here we're not even mercenaries. We're just bandits. Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's foreign minister, pins much of the blame on shadowy private security firms.
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LUIS GILBERTO MURILLO: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "They come here and recruit people, sometimes through trickery, then send them off to wars that have nothing to do with us," he said. Murillo wants Colombia to sign a 1989 U.N. convention that bans the hiring of mercenaries. But some analysts say the Bogota government needs to increase benefits for military vets who often fall on hard times. That's what happened to Luis Medina (ph). After leaving the army, he was barely scraping by, picking coffee in southern Colombia, according to his sister, Anna (ph).
ANNA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Then, she says, a letter arrived inviting Medina to fight with the Ukrainian army against Russian invaders. Medina jumped at the chance to earn $3,000 a month.
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LUIS MEDINA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: In this video he sent to his sister, Medina ducks for cover in a Ukrainian trench. Indeed, he was constantly under fire and decided to return to Columbia after just six months. Yet, his brief stint as a soldier of fortune left him a marked man. His flight home in July included a layover in Venezuela, which is an ally of Vladimir Putin. Medina was promptly arrested and turned over to Russian authorities.
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MEDINA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: That's Medina being interrogated in a Moscow prison, where he is now awaiting trial on charges of being a mercenary.
For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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