THE NEW HUMANITARIAN: Aid groups welcome Colombia move on Venezuelan migrants →

Aid groups welcomed Colombia’s offer of temporary legal status for a decade to more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants, but cautioned that implementation will take time and said greater assistance was needed for one of the world’s most underfunded humanitarian crises. “We need to take action,” President Iván Duque said during the announcement on Monday afternoon in the Colombian capital, Bogotá – made alongside Filippo Grandi, the UN’s high commissioner for refugees.

Adolia Silva and her granddaughter share this small room and bed in an overcrowded building in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia. Photo: Steven Grattan

AL JAZEERA: Colombia to grant temporary protection to nearly 1m Venezuelans →

Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers in Colombia will be granted protected status for up to 10 years, Colombian President Ivan Duque announced on Monday alongside Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Venezuelans who arrived in Colombia before January 31 will be allowed to remain in the country for a decade under the new rules. Holding protected resident status will also allow migrants to legally work and help them integrate into society.

People coming from Venezuela with protective face masks as a precautionary measure to avoid contracting the novel coronavirus hold their documents on the border at Simon Bolivar International Bridge, in Cucuta, Colombia. Photo: SCHNEYDER MENDOZA/AFP VIA GETTY

VICE NEWS: Colombia's FARC Just Picked a New Acronym to Win Hearts and Minds →

The political wing of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group has changed its controversial name in a move it hopes will garner more votes and support.

AL JAZEERA: Rural Colombian groups seek help from new US gov’t amid violence →

More than 100 Colombian human rights associations from remote Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities have written to the new US administration to ask for help with the continued violence and killings they face.

Leaders of indigenous communities mobilised in October to reject massacres and assassinations of social leaders. Photo: Steven Grattan

VICE WORLD NEWS: An 11-Year-Old Environmental Activist in Colombia is Getting Death Threats →

An 11-year-old Colombian boy has received messages threatening to “skin him” and “to cut his fingers off” after posting a video on social media calling on the government to provide more access for children in Colombia to online schooling amid the pandemic. 

The attack on Francisco Vera has sparked outrage among human rights groups, the government and Colombian citizens alike. 

Francisco Vera, an 11-year-old environmental activist in Colombia, received death threats after demanding more access to online schooling for children during the pandemic. image from vera's facebook account.

Al JAZEERA: Killings of Colombia ex-FARC fighters persist amid peace process →

Since demobilising in 2017, former rebel fighter Manuel Antonio Gonzalez has faced numerous death threats and lost his son in a bloody murder.

Part of the now-defunct Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group, who signed a peace deal with the government of Juan Manuel Santos in 2016, Gonzalez, 54, lives in worry, not only for his own life but for the thousands of other former fighters who signed up to the agreement alongside him.

Manuel Antonio Gonzalez pictured in a facemask that reads: ‘They_re killing us’. His son was killed in 2019 [Courtesy of Manuel Antonio Gonzalez]

AL JAZEERA: Four years after FARC peace deal, Colombia grapples with violence →

Bogota, Colombia – Hector Mariano Carabali has been unable to keep count of the number of death threats he has received in recent years.

The Afro-Colombian human rights defender from the southwestern Cauca region, which continues to be mired in insecurity, has been left disillusioned by the peace deal struck between the previous government of Juan Manuel Santos and the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016.

A woman hangs a Colombian flag next to a FARC flag at a reintegration camp in Pondores, Colombia on 1 August 2019. Four years on from a historic peace accord, the agreement is fraying and the violence has not gone away. (Luisa Gonzalez/REUTERS)

AL JAZEERA: ‘Everything’s been destroyed’: Iota hits Providencia island →

Bogota, Colombia — The small Colombian island of Providencia has been hit hard by the powerful Category-5 hurricane Iota on Monday which has caused severe damage to the majority of local’s homes and the already scant public infrastructure.

Colombia’s President, Ivan Duque, said it is the first Category 5 – the most serious of hurricanes – to hit the Andean nation in its history.

VICE NEWS: Trump's ‘Stealth Deportations’ of Venezuelans May Violate Human Rights →

Several Caribbean island nations and the United States have come under fire from humanitarian groups and U.S. politicians for deporting Venezuelan migrants and refugees home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump deported hundreds of Venezuelans through Caribbean island Trinidad and Tobago this year, according to human rights groups, who estimate some 258 people have been sent back in recent months. 

VICE NEWS: Colombians Are Completely Fed Up With Their President: 'We Want a Different Country' →

Tens of thousands of Colombians from all sectors of society took to the streets in a national strike on October 21 to call for changes to conservative President Iván Duque’s social and economic policies.

“We want a different country,” said 54-year-old Rocio Reyes, mother of a teenage son, who held a sign at the entrance of Bogotá’s main public square that said: ‘Enough is enough’.

Rocio Reyes, 54, stands in front to Bogotá's main public square, Plaza Bolivar, holding a sign saying "enough is enough with this government," on Wednesday, October 21. Photo: Steven Grattan