Tuesday May 1st, 2024 at a press conference at the "Casa de Nariño", the President of Colombia Gustavo Petro denounced corruption within the army for the large-scale theft of arms and ammunition.

Following the inspections and inventories of two military bases at Fort Tolemaida, located in the central department of Tolima, and at the base of the 10th Brigade of the Army, in the north of the country, with the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez and the General Commander of the military forces, Helder Giraldo Bonilla, it turned out that millions of various munitions, rocket launchers, howitzers including missiles had disappeared.

"There have been for a long time networks made up of people from the military and civilian forces dedicated to a massive arms trade using the legal weapons of the Colombian State," declared President Pétro believes that the weapons and Stolen ammunition could have ended up in the hands of Colombian guerrillas and other local armed groups and potentially in foreign conflicts, notably sold to criminal gangs in Haiti, recalling that Haiti is only "7 hours by speed boat from the base de La Guajira”, one of the stolen arsenals. Also note that Haiti shares maritime borders with Colombia."

President Petro revealed the results of the inspections, while calling these arms thefts a serious problem.

To Tolemaida :

"746 grenades of 81 millimeter caliber are required; 3,712 M-26 hand grenades; 2,880 40-millimeter grenades; 1,590 60-millimeter grenades; 797 40 millimeter grenades on link (in strip for heavy weapons) b; 139,780 ammunition of 7.62 caliber and 668,359 ammunition of 5.56 caliber.

At the base of the 10th Brigade :

"two Spike anti-tank missiles; 37 Nimrod air-to-ground (both Israeli-made); 550 RPG rockets; 22 155-millimeter grenades; 621 106-millimeter grenades; 1,077 105-millimeter howitzers; 1,077 90 millimeter caliber grenades; 960 81-millimeter grenades" and "1,218 60-millimeter grenades."

Also missing from the depots are "4,171 40mm grenades; 9,829 rounds of 162 caliber ammunition; 761,551 rounds of 5.56 caliber ammunition; 57,992 5.56 caliber Slap rounds and 1,262 .38 caliber rounds".

SL/ TB/ HaitiLibre