The Indigenous World 2026: Colombia

Written on 22 April 2026. Posted in Colombia

Colombia is home to some 115 Indigenous Peoples of diverse origins and linguistic and cultural traditions. They live spread throughout the country on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, in the Amazon, the Orinoco savannahs and the Andean areas. According to official projections,^[i] in 2025 the total Indigenous population stood at 2,500,000 people, of which approximately 54.9% live in 935 legalized collective territories or reserves.

The rest of the population is located in urban centres or scattered across rural areas. In addition to Indigenous Peoples, the Colombian Constitution and laws also recognize Afro-descendant communities, the Raizal communities of the islands, the Palenqueros of the Caribbean and the Roma people as collective subjects of rights.

This article is part of the 40^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. Find The Indigenous World 2026 in full here

Breaking the cycle of armed conflict in Colombia

The forms of social and political organization of Colombia's Indigenous Peoples are as diverse as their habitats, territories, languages and authorities. The 115 officially recognized peoples in the country have the power to govern their territories under the Political Constitution and other regulations that confirm their collective rights to own their lands, appoint their authorities, decide on their resources and choose the development model they consider viable to guarantee the reproduction of their societies and cultures for future generations.

Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities and, in general, peasants living in rural areas have, however, been disproportionately affected by the Colombian armed conflict, which evolved from a dispute between the dominant oligarchies and insurgent groups in the second half of the 20^th century into something altogether more complex with actions on the part of paramilitary groups associated with state forces from the 1990s on. This confrontation spread and deepened its impacts alongside the struggle for control of territories and illegal economic routes –especially for drug trafficking– but also due to the covert involvement of political and economic sectors linked to the war.

The territorial presence of non-state armed groups and criminal organizations and their violent strategies of social control continue to impact the civilian population and generate risks for governance in the territories (...) This violence disproportionately affects Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants, grassroots organizational processes and peasant communities. OHCHR has observed that non-state armed groups and criminal organizations continue to attempt to destroy the social fabric, co-opt, supplant and/or eliminate organizations with a historical presence in the territories, such as indigenous authorities, community councils and directors of Community Action Boards, and promote the creation of new organizations to defend their interests. In some cases, they seek to instrumentalize the population (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR, 2025).

At the centre or on the margins of the conflict, the rights recognized to Indigenous Peoples to determine their destiny, govern their territories and live in peace have thus been undermined by decades of violence that refuses to relent despite advances in the recognition of collective rights, and recurring initiatives for dialogue and negotiation with the actors of the war and its sponsors.

The human rights situation at the start of the 21^st century

The joy at the recognition of the multicultural nature of the Nation and the comprehensive collective rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Colombia with the enactment of the 1991 Constitution was followed by dismay over the interrupted series of structural and systematic violations of their human rights, marked by the expansion of the internal armed conflict, territorial dispossession and state failures. The escalation of violence that characterized the 1990s and 2000s –including massacres, forced displacement, child recruitment, land dispossession and violations of international humanitarian law on the part of multiple armed actors– placed entire communities at risk of physical and cultural extermination.

In response to this situation of violence and state failure to provide guarantees, the Constitutional Court issued Ruling T-025 of 2004^[1] and Follow-up Order 004 of 2009,^[2] marking a milestone in Colombian jurisprudence by recognizing and highlighting these violations and declaring a State of Unconstitutionality. Throughout these rulings and orders, the Court documented how the armed conflict and its underlying factors constituted an imminent threat to 33 peoples who were at risk of physical and cultural extermination. It highlighted the fact that forced displacement by armed actors not only meant the loss of homes and territories but also had a profound impact on collective rights, such as cultural identity. It identified disruptions in traditional food patterns, the dismantling of traditional medicine systems, the differentiated risks and impacts on women and children, and the difficulty for younger generations in maintaining cultural continuity. The impact on the social and cultural fabric was analysed not only as a collateral effect of the conflict but as a specific form of violation of the right to identity and to physical and cultural existence.

All those who have taken part in this armed conflict –mainly guerrilla and paramilitary groups but also, on occasions, clearly identified units and members of the security forces, as well as criminal groups linked to different aspects of the internal conflict– are participating in a complex pattern of warfare which, having been introduced by force of arms into the ancestral territories of some of the Indigenous Peoples that inhabit the country, has become a certain and imminent danger to their very existence, to their individual processes of ethnic and cultural consolidation, and to the effective enjoyment of the fundamental individual and collective rights of their members (Constitutional Court, 2009).

For their part, state institutions were singled out in these rulings for their systematic indifference in failing to fulfil their duty of protection in a timely and proper manner, thus exacerbating patterns of structural discrimination and marginalization. The Court characterized the state’s actions to assist displaced communities as insufficient, belated and lacking a differentiated approach that could respond to the specific realities of Indigenous Peoples. Some years later, in Follow-up Order 266 of 2017, the Court ruled that, despite certain regulatory advances, institutional barriers and practices persisted that were preventing the so-called “unconstitutional state of affairs” from being overcome with respect of ethnic victims, and that the state had failed to counteract the violations and their differential effects or to comprehensively address the consequences of displacement and violence, which continued to severely violate the collective rights to autonomy, territory and cultural identity.

The persistence of conflict over Indigenous territories

Today, in the context of active armed conflict in several territories, human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples continue to claim victims, although there has been a decline in lethal violence in recent years. According to data from the Centre for Historical Memory (CNMH), between 1990 and March 2025, 2,538 Indigenous people were killed in the armed conflict –88.6% of them men–, with a record 191 victims in 2003.

Source: Prepared by the author, based on CNMH, 2025^[3]

Overall, the available data suggest that although high levels of violence and various risks such as containment, displacement and threats persist, homicide indicators showed a slight downward trend between 2023 and 2025, especially in Indigenous territories located in the departments of Cauca, Nariño, La Guajira, Antioquia, Cesar and Chocó.

These regions are still strategic corridors for drug trafficking and natural resource exploitation (minerals, land, and illicit trade routes) with a prolonged presence of multiple armed actors (paramilitaries, dissidents^[4] and criminal gangs) who continue to fight for territorial control. The ferocity of this confrontation continues to result in forced displacement, murders of leaders, containment and loss of control over Indigenous territories.

In the same vein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)^[5] has noted a decrease in some multiple homicides, attributable to temporary cessations in hostilities, regional dialogues and targeted institutional presence, even though threats, containment and forced displacements persist in Indigenous communities.

Recognition and protection of territories

Colombia’s Indigenous Peoples have suffered historical and systematic dispossession of their territories, a situation that became even worse at the height of the armed conflict when massive forced displacements and occupations took place, encouraging the dispossession of land in rural areas, including in favour of companies and individuals. The usurpation of rural lands in parallel with the rise of the armed conflict is being documented by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a court created at the behest of the Final Peace Agreement signed between the state and the former FARC-EP guerrillas.

[Criminal Patterns favouring particular economic interests]. This category includes acts that are motivated by control of economic interests in the territory, its wealth and the seizure of land from rural inhabitants. A significant proportion of the crimes related to the counterinsurgency served the economic interests of legal and illegal actors by creating the conditions for the extraction of natural resources, the expansion of the agricultural frontier and the incorporation of new lands into the market (JEP, n.d.).^[6]

The process of territorial dispossession has nonetheless been partially reversed by the current government. According to official information, in the last three years –up to October 2025– the National Land Agency intervened and advanced processes of constitution, expansion, titling and regularization of more than one million hectares (1,392,473.7 hectares), thus contributing to a consolidation of the collective territories of Indigenous Peoples. This process guarantees legal certainty of ownership, clarifies the legal validity of titles of colonial or republican origin, and regularizes properties to make them imprescriptible and inalienable, thus strengthening the collective and integral nature of these territories according to the current legal frameworks.

Although administrative difficulties and territorial conflicts still exist, these actions represent an institutional paradigm shift in guaranteeing territorial rights, historical reparation and protection of Indigenous Peoples' ways of life in the country.

Progress in the governance of Indigenous territories

With regard to the governance of collective territories as a prerequisite for the legal and existential security of peoples, significant progress could be noted according to the assessment by the Organization of American States (OAS) Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia.^[7]

The issuing of Decree 1,275 of 2024, recognizing Indigenous Peoples as environmental authorities in their reserves, and Decree 488 of 2025, regulating the formation of Indigenous Territorial Entities (ETI), represent a fundamental legal advance in realizing the right to autonomy and self-government. By directly strengthening Indigenous environmental governance and promoting the autonomous management of public resources, these regulations transfer real decision-making powers to the communities, enabling them to exercise effective control over their territories according to their own regulatory systems. This structural recognition is a momentous step towards reversing historical exclusions, although its full implementation still faces the challenge of harmonization with institutions and the ordinary legal system to make this autonomy effective.

In a similar vein, the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP/OEA) noted that, through Ruling T-106 of 2025, the Constitutional Court consolidated this prospect of self-determination by ordering the specific protection of threatened Indigenous authorities and, in a paradigmatic manner, endorsing the constitution of the ETI Macroterritorio de Jaguares de Yuruparí. The creation of this entity, which covers nearly 30 peoples in an area of approximately 8 million hectares (equivalent to 16.5% of the Colombian Amazon), is not only a physical protection measure: it is the concrete recognition of an Indigenous government unit with jurisdiction over a vast ancestral territory. This judicial act sets a crucial precedent by validating large-scale models of territorial autonomy where peoples can exercise their own forms of administration, justice and conservation, thus strengthening their capacity to comprehensively defend their cultures and ecosystems.

Inclusion in peace building

Ethnic Chapter of the Peace Agreement with the FARC

Despite setbacks and opposition to its implementation, Indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations succeeded in ensuring that the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 included an Ethnic Chapter, which constituted a legal and political innovation of historic significance by explicitly and comprehensively recognizing that the construction of a stable and lasting peace in Colombia must be pluralistic and differentiated. Its importance lies in the fact that it permeates the implementation of the entire Agreement, establishing an obligation to design and implement actions and measures with the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of the ethnic peoples.

In essence, the chapter enshrined principles such as special protection for collective territories, peoples at risk of physical and cultural extermination, a guarantee of non-repetition of the disproportionate violence they had suffered, and the creation of implementation and follow-up mechanisms, such as the Special High-Level Instance for Ethnic Peoples (IEANPE). This mechanism was designed to ensure participation with a differential approach and it operates as the main contact for and consultant to the Commission for Monitoring, Promotion and Verification of Implementation (CSIVI) –a joint body between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP– to guarantee the rights and participation of Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero communities in the implementation of the Agreement.

It is clear, however, that following the halt in the implementation of the Peace Agreement during the four years of Iván Duque’s government, the Ethnic Chapter also suffered setbacks that prevented its full implementation, which is why its first fruits are only now beginning to be seen in some regions such as the Chocó:

The Ethnic Chapter of the Peace Agreement represents a historic recognition of the rights of Colombia's Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities. It establishes concrete measures to guarantee the protection of their ancestral territories, the preservation of their cultures and their active participation in peace building. However, it continues to be one of the areas that is lagging behind in its implementation, and which requires urgent efforts to ensure its progress. This exercise in the Chocó not only seeks to advance the implementation of the Ethnic Chapter but also aims to serve as a replicable model for other regions of the country. The dynamics developed demonstrate that collaboration between national, territorial and international authorities can generate concrete and sustainable solutions to close the historical gaps that affect ethnic peoples (IEANPE, 2025).^[8]

Territorial peace councils

The territorial peace councils were created after the signing of the Peace Agreement with the aim of encouraging the active participation of citizens and communities in building peace and coexistence from the territories.^[9]

In practice, however, this participation is not always uniform nor is it operational in all municipalities. In the case of Indigenous Peoples, participation is marginal although, in some cases, the communities themselves have promoted the creation of these councils at their own initiative (as documented in community experiences in Jambaló, Cauca), bringing together traditional authorities, victims, community leaders and municipal authorities to discuss reparations, dialogue and local peace. The inclusion of Indigenous people in these councils also responds to legal and constitutional mandates for political participation and prior consultation, although their implementation depends on the will of the municipality and the recognition of their own authorities, having to overcome political obstacles and effective recognition due to the persistence of the conflict and institutional barriers.

The challenges to achieving peace

Colombian Indigenous communities have not only played a significant role as victims of the armed conflict: they have always shown themselves to be territorial forces willing to contribute to peacebuilding. Even so, it is undeniable that there is a critical gap between the rules, the formal design of peace mechanisms, and their effective territorial and cultural implementation. For peace to be stable and lasting, it is not only necessary to guarantee the will of the actors in the conflict and of the national and territorial governments but it is also imperative to move from a consultative form of participation to a binding and decision-making one that guarantees the presence and effective voice of Indigenous women, traditional authorities and community sectors in all spaces designed and created for peace.

In addition, as noted by MAPP/OAS in its report on the peace process, in order to continue peacebuilding in Colombia, despite its domestic and foreign adversaries, there remains a need to develop mechanisms for reparations to victims; measures for reintegration into civilian life in collective territories; the possible application of the Special Indigenous Jurisdiction to members of armed groups; and the incorporation of community methods for conflict resolution (MAPP/OEA, 2025).

Diana Alexandra Mendoza is a Colombian anthropologist with a Master's in Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, and a specialist in Cultural Management. Independent researcher associated with IWGIA. She has extensive experience in individual and collective rights, environment and culture.

This article is part of the 40^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. Find The Indigenous World 2026 in full here

Notes and references

^[1] Constitutional Court of Colombia. Ruling T-025 of 2004. https://www.funcionpublica.gov.co/eva/gestornormativo/norma.php?i=23380

^[2] Constitutional Court of Colombia. Order 004 of 2009. Protección de derechos fundamentales de personas e indígenas desplazados por el conflicto armado en el marco de superación del estado de cosas inconstitucional declarado en sentencia T-025/04. https://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/autos/2009/a004-09.htm

^[3] National Centre for Historical Memory (CNMH) Observatory of Memory and Conflict. 2025. “Victims of Selective Murders”. 30 July 2025. https://geoportal-de-datos-abiertos-cnmh-cnmh.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/72d687168f8c4b1cb4968cf1163ea7cd_3/about

^[4] The term “dissidents" refers to armed groups initially formed by some former combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) who did not accept the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 by the Colombian government and this insurgent group. The Colombian government calls them Residual Organized Armed Groups (Grupos Armados Organizados Residuales, GAOR).

^[5] United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Human Rights Council. 58^th period of sessions. 24 February to 4 Apri 2025. Informe situación de los derechos humanos en Colombia. https://www.hchr.org.co/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/02-24-2025-Final-Informe-Anual-Alto-Comisionado-Colombia-Castellano.pdf

^[6] Special Jurisdiction for Peace (n.d.). Case 08: Crímenes cometidos por la fuerza pública y otros agentes del Estado en colaboración con grupos paramilitares y otros terceros civiles. https://www.jep.gov.co/macrocasos/caso08.html

^[7] MAPP/OAS. THIRTY-NINTH REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL TO THE PERMANENT COUNCIL ON THE MISSION OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES TO SUPPORT THE PEACE PROCESS IN COLOMBIA OEA/Ser.G. CP/doc.6164/25. 2 December 2025. https://documentsearch.oas.org/documents/CP_doc_-6164/CP_doc_-6164-en.docx

^[8] IEANPE. “El Chocó, pionero en estrategia para acelerar la implementación del Capítulo Étnico del Acuerdo Final de Paz”. IANPE, 24 January 2025. https://ieanpe.com/2025/01/24/el-choco-pionero-en-estrategia-para-acelerar-la-implementacion-del-capituloetnico-del-acuerdo-final-de-paz/

^[9] Decree 885 of 2017 creates and regulates the Territorial Councils for Peace, Reconciliation and Coexistence, defining them as spaces for broad, plural and consultative participation, with the inclusion of the social sectors, ethnic groups (Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants), victims, women and youth, to advise the territorial authorities in peace building.

Tags: Land rights, Human rights