Although the government has signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia is still considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
According to a report by the United States Department of State, Colombia continues to be the world leader in cocaine production with approximately 70% of the total global trade, with an estimated annual production of 1,400 tons exported along old and new routes and 90% of the processing.
Organized crime has taken over and drug trafficking has always had a direct influence on the political, social and economic life of the country. The internal armed conflict has always represented a source of direct and indirect economic financing for insurrectionist groups (FARC etc.), paramilitary groups (AUC) and organised crime (drug cartels) and in recent decades various national leaders have been accused of alliances with drug trafficking groups and/or armed groups linked to drug trafficking to obtain political and economic power.
Over the years, small drug trafficking organizations (“cartelitos”) have multiplied and spread, business alliances have increased, other channels and means of export have been identified, cocaine production has increased year after year and its distribution has become increasingly widespread.
In the drug trafficking chain, in a country that has been torn apart for decades by internal conflicts as well as by guerrilla groups (the National Liberation Army and the dissidents of the FARC), other groups operate that act as a link between the farmers who produce coca leaves and the international buyers of the finished product. Among these are the so-called G.A.O., organized armed groups and the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada, both far-right paramilitary groups.
Then there are organized criminal groups (G.D.O.) such as Los Pelusos and Ratrojos Operatives and other criminal gangs that mostly recruit young boys taken along the streets of the most dangerous pueblos especially in Bogota, Medellin or Barranquilla.
Today in Colombia more than 21 million inhabitants get by on less than 88 US dollars a month and 7.4 million on less than 39 dollars. In the capital Bogota, for example, there are 3.3 million poor people, in Medellín, the second most important city in the country, there are 2.3 million, in Cali, the third Colombian city, 1.6 million. Today 46.7 percent of Colombian women live in poverty, while for men the percentage is 40.1.
With the pandemic, which in addition to closing the job market to young people, prevented them from studying, the situation has worsened. In 2022, 243,801 students dropped out of school, 2.7 percent of the total.
From all this data, it is easy to understand why the balance has fallen, especially in the poor neighborhoods of large cities, where a bad starting situation has visibly worsened with the pandemic. And where illegal groups (guerrilla dissidents, drug trafficking organizations or other forms of crime) operate considering young people as potential recruits.
The most vulnerable suffer an uprooting that only ends up worsening due to the lack of job opportunities and adequate education.
Located between Santa Marta and Cartagena, Barranquilla is spread over the banks of the Magdalena River and offers a unique blend of culture, colonial architecture and modernity. Despite the many advances in recent years, Barranquilla remains a dangerous city even in 2024.
This is confirmed by the data from the Numbeo World Ranking (the world’s largest crowdsourcing portal on perceived crime rates) which classifies Barranquilla with a high crime rate of 79.58 100 and places it at the top of the list of the most dangerous cities in the world, more than Rio de Janeiro, Memphis or Tijuana in Mexico.
