International
Colombia’s crusade to repatriate its archeological heritage
November 5 |
Wearing latex gloves and a white coat, restorer Carla Medina holds part of Colombia’s history in her hands. A growing number of pre-Columbian pieces are returning from abroad in an unorthodox way: President Gustavo Petro himself is bringing them back.
“It’s a great responsibility and a great privilege,” he tells AFP in his laboratory at the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH).
Medina, 41, analyzes a clay vessel repatriated from Italy, which had to be reconstructed from fragments. She is grateful “to have the opportunity to have access to an object that has so many years of history”.
At least 560 pre-Columbian pieces were returned from other countries aboard the presidential plane of leftist Gustavo Petro, in some of the more than 30 trips abroad that he has completed in just over a year in office. International tours criticized by the opposition as dispensable and costly.
Most of the pieces returned from the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Mexico, among other countries, in a coordinated work between the Foreign Ministry and ICANH.
One of the most recent returns was in October and took place on the diplomatic vessel Gloria, where 12 archeological pieces traveled from Costa Rica to Cartagena.
The recovery is part of a strategy of “efficient use of resources”, said at the time the former vice-minister of Multilateral Affairs, Laura Gil, and is advancing at an accelerated pace compared to the previous government, in which only 18 pieces were repatriated in four years.
For Catalina Ceballos, director of cultural affairs at the Foreign Ministry, it is a way to “start talking about decolonization from another perspective.”
Most of the pieces returned to Colombia were taken out of the country when there was no legal clarity in the world on the traffic of archaeological goods.
Only since 1997 has Colombian law recognized the State as the legitimate owner of national archaeological heritage.
However, the fight against illegal trafficking of these pieces has not been a priority in a country bled by half a century of armed conflict between authorities, guerrillas, paramilitaries and criminal gangs. While the budget suggested by the Presidency for ICANH in 2024 is equivalent to some 2.3 million dollars, that proposed for the defense area and the Police is almost 600 times greater.
Juan Pablo Ospina, coordinator of the anthropology group at ICANH, nevertheless emphasizes that in the current government repatriations have been “successful” because the presidential plane has been “fully available” to bring pieces “properly packed and safeguarded on those trips”.
Recent returns have been made mostly by private collectors on a voluntary basis and require diplomatic work in each country of origin. ICANH is then in charge of the registration, cataloguing, transfer, reception and, in some cases, intervention of the pieces.
As most of the repatriated works are ceramic, the restoration processes are simpler. “Even though they are very old, they can be very well preserved with the passage of time,” says Medina.
The most vulnerable materials are those “of an organic nature,” such as textiles, paper or wood.
The composition of the materials also offers details about how Colombia’s early societies functioned in relation to their territory, says Medina.
For the most part, the Colombian territory was made up of pre-Columbian societies distributed in small chiefdoms.
Ospina assures that what today corresponds to Panama, Venezuela, Colombia and part of northern Ecuador is known as the “intermediate zone” in Latin American archeology, “because what happened there is completely different from what happened in Mesoamerica or in the central Andes,” where great empires were formed.
That is why in Colombia, unlike in Mexico or Peru, it is not common to find palaces, pyramids or large goldsmith traces, with one great exception: the treasure of the Quimbayas. A collection of gold found at the end of the 19th century in a small village in the department of Quindío (west), donated at that time to the Queen of Spain by the Colombian president Carlos Holguín and which today is in the Museum of America in Madrid.
Most of Colombia’s archaeological treasures are ceramic pieces from different periods and cultures, some 6,000 and 7,000 years old, found in the Caribbean, Ospina explains.
“They are very early evidence of ceramics,” he adds.
In other Colombian regions the use of ceramics dates back to approximately 1,000 BC, present mainly in religious and funerary rites.
International
WHO worker killed as Israeli forces fire on Gaza medical convoy
An employee of the World Health Organization (WHO) was killed on Monday in Gaza Strip after Israeli forces opened fire on a medical convoy transporting patients for evacuation, according to witnesses and official accounts.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the vehicle approached troops in a “threatening manner,” alleging that the driver accelerated toward soldiers despite warning shots. “The troops fired warning shots. The vehicle continued advancing, and additional fire was directed at it,” the military said in a statement.
The army also claimed the vehicle lacked clear markings and was therefore treated as a potential threat.
However, survivors disputed that account. Raed Aslan, a passenger in the convoy, told reporters in Khan Younis that the vehicles were clearly marked with WHO insignia. “The vehicle was clearly identified as belonging to the WHO,” he said, adding that an Israeli tank blocked the road and fired at the driver despite the route being empty.
The convoy was transporting patients to the Rafah crossing, the only exit point available for medical evacuations abroad, as Israel does not permit transfers to Jerusalem or the West Bank.
The incident adds to a series of controversial cases involving Israeli military actions against humanitarian convoys. In April 2024, seven workers from World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah. The military initially cited a “misidentification,” despite the vehicles being clearly marked.
Similarly, in March 2025, 15 paramedics, rescuers, and a UN worker were killed near Rafah. Israeli authorities first claimed emergency lights were off, but video evidence later contradicted that assertion.
A subsequent investigation by organizations including Forensic Architecture found that Israeli forces fired hundreds of rounds at the convoy, and that the vehicles were later destroyed and buried along with the bodies before being recovered days later.
The latest incident is likely to intensify scrutiny over the conduct of military operations in Gaza, particularly regarding the safety of humanitarian personnel and medical evacuations.
International
NASA’s Orion sets record as farthest crewed mission from Earth
NASA’s Orion spacecraft set a new milestone on Monday, becoming the crewed space mission to travel the farthest distance from Earth, surpassing the record set by Apollo 13, which reached 400,171 kilometers from the planet.
The Orion capsule, part of the Artemis II mission, achieved the record at 12:57 p.m. Eastern Time as it continued its journey toward the gravitational sphere of influence of the Moon.
The milestone came less than an hour before the crew was scheduled to begin observation activities during its planned lunar flyby.
“From here, in the ‘Integrity Cabin,’ as we surpass the greatest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, we do so honoring the extraordinary efforts and achievements of those who came before us in human space exploration,” said Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The mission, which launched last Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, is designed to orbit the Moon and return to Earth within ten days. According to the schedule, the spacecraft is expected to begin its lunar flyby at 2:45 p.m. ET, concluding around 9:20 p.m.
International
Petro accuses top guerrilla leader of bribing officers to evade military strikes
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said Saturday that the country’s most wanted guerrilla leader is bribing members of the security forces to obtain advance information and evade military operations.
According to the government, Iván Mordisco, a dissident leader of the now-defunct FARC, is currently on the run in the जंगल following an الجيش bombardment last week that killed six of his closest collaborators in the department of Vaupés.
Authorities believe the guerrilla commander had been at the site shortly before the operation. “He buys off the commanders who are supposed to capture him; that’s how he escapes the bombings, but leaves his own people to die. He is warned before every strike,” Petro wrote on social media platform X.
The six individuals killed in the strike were part of Mordisco’s security ring, according to Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Local media reported that one of those killed was a woman known as “alias Lorena,” who was allegedly Mordisco’s partner and the mother of his child.
After failed attempts to negotiate peace, Petro’s administration has shifted to a more aggressive military strategy against the guerrilla leader. In recent months, three of Mordisco’s brothers have been captured and now face charges including homicide, kidnapping, and arms trafficking.
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