7,132 weapons — That is what the United Nations had collected by June 27, 2017. On that day, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) laid down their arms and transformed from a guerrilla army into a political movement, ending one of the longest civil wars in modern history.
Born in the early 1960s as a communist self-defense force of farmers from the breakaway republic of Marquetalia, the FARC emerged from decades of brutal political violence between Liberals and Conservatives that had already claimed 200,000 lives. When the Colombian state attacked Marquetalia with 16,000 soldiers, helicopters, and fighter planes, just 48 armed farmers escaped into the mountains. From that retreat, the FARC was formed in 1964, driven by a single demand that still resonates today: land reform in one of Latin America’s most unequal societies.
After 53 years of war, the guns finally fell silent. While another guerrilla group, the ELN, continues to fight, thousands of FARC combatants entered UN-monitored transition camps across Colombia, experiencing peace for the first time. Holidays once marked by military offensives became moments of quiet celebration.
In the eastern plains of Arauca, around 400 former fighters lived in improvised huts, waiting for August 1, when they would leave the camps as civilians. Each faced the same uncertain question: how to build a future after a lifetime of war.
