‘Physical and cultural extinction’: Arhuaco warn of new war in Colombia’s sacred mountains

High in the cloud forests of northern Colombia, the Arhuaco people are tying white cotton threads around their wrists and making a pledge: to defend the mountain they call the “heart of the world” – and to survive what they describe as a new war.

Now the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (a UNESCO‑listed biosphere reserve) has become a strategic prize for drug traffickers, paramilitaries and guerrilla factions vying for control of smuggling routes, illegal mining and extortion rackets.

Around a ceremonial fire, Indigenous leader Ati Quigua told reporter Harriet Barber: “We are a peaceful community, but now violence is coming to our land.” Armed groups, she said, have imposed curfews, interfered in local assemblies and attacked the Arhuaco capital, burning sacred objects and crops as a way to break spiritual ties to Country.

But now non‑state actors have laid anti‑personnel mines, carried out bomb and drone attacks and forcibly displaced hundreds of families from the five Indigenous nations who live in the Sierra – the Kogui, Wiwa, Kankuamo, Arhuaco and Ette Naka. The UN human rights office has warned that these groups face “physical and cultural extinction” without urgent action from the state.

Children are increasingly caught in the middle. Colombia’s ombudsman has reported a sharp rise in recruitment of minors by armed groups, from 43 alerts in 2021 to more than 600 cases in 2024. Indigenous leaders say some children are taken as informants, others as fighters; sexual violence is widespread but under‑reported because families fear retaliation.

At the same time, mining and infrastructure projects are advancing into the Sierra’s “Black Line” – the legally recognised boundary of ancestral territory. Data from the National Mining Agency cited in the report show 124 active mining titles and 88 pending applications overlapping the area. Civil‑society research from groups such as Cinep has flagged the combination of conflict and mega‑projects as an existential threat to both biodiversity and Indigenous cultures.

The Colombian state has made formal commitments to protect Indigenous peoples at risk, with the Constitutional Court previously ruling that several nations, including some in the Sierra Nevada, are in danger of extermination. Yet rights groups say implementation has lagged, and that security forces have failed to prevent targeted killings of community leaders and environmental defenders. Colombia has recorded the world’s highest number of murdered environmental defenders for several years running, according to NGO Global Witness.

Quigua said that if current trends continue, “within two generations, our future is over.” For now, Arhuaco families continue to plant crops, hold ceremonies and teach children their language under the shadow of armed patrols and mining drills, hoping the outside world will pay attention before the thread they are tying around their wrists (and their territory) is cut.