CAJIBIO — A bombing on the Pan-American Highway near Cajibio killed 21 people in late May 2026, an attack carried out by the Central Command (ECM), a dissident faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). The strike marked a setback for President Gustavo Petro's "total peace" initiative, under which guerrilla attacks had increased compared with earlier in his term.

Petro became president of Colombia in 2022 and pledged to achieve total peace, signing deals with all of the country's armed groups, including leftwing rebels and organized crime factions. The program offered armed groups reduced sentences, the chance to retain part of their wealth, and suspension of military operations in exchange for dismantling, disarmament, and transition to legal economies. Shortly after taking office, Petro announced a ceasefire agreement with the country's five largest armed groups, though the National Liberation Army (ELN) denied agreeing to any truce.

The 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and Farc resulted in the rebel group laying down its weapons and substantially reduced violence, but subsequent administrations delayed implementing its provisions, and the settlement was rejected by Farc dissidents and other rebel factions. By early 2026, violence levels were the highest since that agreement, with homicides, kidnappings, and massacres rising. The homicide rate stood at about 26 per 100,000 inhabitants as of May 2026, compared with a peak of about 80 per 100,000 in the early 1990s. Colombia's internal armed conflict has claimed nearly half a million lives.

At the start of 2025, fighting between the ELN and the Farc dissident group Frente 33 left more than 80 people dead and displaced 60,000, the largest episode of forced displacement in the country's history. In June 2025, rightwing senator Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot by the Farc dissident group Segunda Marquetalia during a campaign event and died several months later. In February 2026, leftwing senator Aida Quilcué was briefly kidnapped while traveling through the Cauca department and released with her bodyguards four hours later.

Despite opposing lethal military action at the start of his term, Petro later authorized the resumption of artillery assaults and airstrikes, some of which resulted in the deaths of young people forcibly recruited by criminal groups. Armed factions used temporary ceasefires to expand territorially and engage in illicit economies such as drug trafficking and mining. Many citizens have avoided political rallies and campaign events because of violence by armed groups, and large rural areas have become no-go zones for politicians.

"It was not an isolated incident," said María Victoria Llorente, executive director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation, who noted that when the current government began there were six departments under dispute, and by May 2026 there were between 13 and 14.

"The elections have so far been marked by a context of insecurity and violence," said Francisco Daza, coordinator of the Colombian Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. "Murder and kidnapping serve as a warning," he said. "They're seeking to limit the degree to which people participate in the electoral process," Daza added.