Through the monitor, two men watch the bombs fall through the air towards a building at the edge of town. “Look at how they run,” says one of the men.
The drone camera follows a group of people below as they drive down the road before the mortar explodes.
These destruction scenes, carried out and filmed by drones, defined the war in Ukraine. But the drone is thousands of miles away in Colombia, and is the latest mutation in the country’s deadly and long-standing conflict and the conflict between the militant groups.
It is also an example of the increased use of drone warfare in Latin America and other parts of the world.
Seventeen videos posted on social media and verified by NBC News show that these groups, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the rebels from the Colombian Revolutionary Army (FARC) are using drones for surveillance, intimidation and bombing campaigns.
Extremists are focusing their attacks on areas where they already have greater control. Katambo, a dense jungle region adjacent to Venezuela, and the Cauca on Colombia’s west coast, are notoriously for its Pacific smuggling routes.
Last year, in Kauca, the town of El Platoedo, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a hand-held shot that was dropped from a drone onto the field during a football match. A boy identified as “Dylan” by Brig. General Federico Mejía, commander of Cauca’s army, was his first death from a drone strike in the country. 12 other people were injured in the explosion.
The strike speed has been accelerating rapidly ever since. “Every day they try to attack,” Mezia said.
In 2024, the Columbia Department of Defense recorded 119 drone-related attacks. In 2025, the attacks doubled, with 180 incidents recorded as of August.
The sound of fear
Drones will be inexpensive, easy to operate and widely available online – have been modified to carry explosives filled with claws, chainsaws and metal bolts, Mejía said. When used for surveillance and strike, they can fly over 1,000 feet, making it virtually unrecognizable by those on the ground.
“The human ear can’t hear that,” said Secretary Luis Fernando Niño Lopez, High Commissioner for Peace for Norte de Santander, the region that includes Catatambo. The drones allowed extremist groups to reach civilians beyond traditional battlefields, he said.
“In the past, war was from body to body,” Niño Lopez said. “But this turned into a personal attack, looking from house to house, using drones.”
In other instances, surveillance and threats go hand in hand. “The word is “Zumbido” (“Buzz”), said Juanita Goebertus, head of the Americas at Human Rights Watch. In the interview, an organization conducted in the Indigenous community of Catatumbo described the “humming sound” from drones where residents monitor their population.
“Every time I heard the sound of a drone spinning, there was a great fear now in the Katambo,” she said.
“We can do that.”
The adoption of drones marks the latest evolution in the conflict that has been raging for more than half a century in Colombia, experts said. In 2016, the government reached a peace agreement with FARC, the country’s largest rebel group. The agreement has been criticized by many sides, including some FARC extremists who refused to be disarmed and continued to operate with a small number of figures.
Their rank decline has changed the tactics of extremist groups – no strangers to asymmetric wars. “This is a great example of a kind of criminal learning,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “They think what’s going on in Ukraine is the very widespread use of drones. They think, ‘Hey, we can do that.’ Then one group begins in Colombia, spreading like a wildfire. ”
Over the past few years, videos have appeared on social media of extremists experimenting with drones purchased from stores. A 2023 video shows fighters from the FARC rebel group testing the weight of handren bullets tied to the body of a drone with strings.
“In many cases, these ammunition is very basic,” Dickinson said. “The majority of attacks are aimed at police or military targets, or rival armed groups, but in many cases they are clearly exploding in areas that affect civilians.
“The drone is coming, the drone is going.”
Cauca and Catatumbo civilians, especially children, became both ends of the drone attack. Last August, authorities arrested a 16-year-old boy who said he was running a drone that dropped a bomb on a police building.
“There are many people who put these drones together. She said that child recruitment in Colombia has skyrocketed over the past few years, with an increase of over 1,000% between 2021 and 2024.
Commercial drones operate relatively easily, and children who already tend to learn new technologies are ideal targets for adoption. “My son is 13 and he manages his drone perfectly,” Mezia said.
Colombian children become increasingly vulnerable to lures from extremist groups who have used social media apps such as Tiktok and Whatsapp to promote attractive versions of their guerrilla lifestyles.
The attack cycle, forced adoption and instability led to Colombia’s biggest evacuation from one region in at least 28 years. More than 73,000 people fled Norte de Santander, according to the Ombudsman’s Columbia office.
For six months, 55-year-old Jose del Carmen Abril, known to friends and family as Carmit, runs for his life. Catatumbo farmers and social leaders told NBC News he was an ELN target. In January he was rescued by military police along with 19 other farmers after a rebel group launched several attacks on rival FARC opposition. Speaking to Colombian media a few weeks after he was rescued, he said he was targeted for his past in the farmworkers’ struggle and for his previous support of Unión Patriótica, a party linked to the FARC.
Now Abril hides and hears the latest updates from his brothers and nephews who remain in the Katambo.
Once promised to be a technological advance for Colombian farmers, drones have become a symbol of fear.
“Katambo is becoming a drone, drone says,” Abril said. “Farmers are the military targets of the ELN, so drones are afraid.”
In exchange of attacks from the ELN and FARC rebels in the area, drones dropped explosives on rural people’s homes. In May, the 12-year-old and his mother were killed in Tib when the drone dropped a handgun on their home, Abril said.
“Big risks for the future”
Colombia’s military government has recently taken steps to stop the surge in drone attacks. The Ministry of Defense has proposed a series of bills that will create a national registration for drones and classify strikes related to civilians as terrorism.
Soldiers also began using anti-drone technology, a device that can find and pack unmanned aircraft. Since implementing these defenses, his forces said they have reduced the number of these attacks by 80%.
There are no devices to combat drones anywhere. Soldiers and police often try to fire drones out of the sky. This is a relatively ineffective measure that creates its own public safety risk when shot down on top of crowded areas.
“They’re very difficult to shoot down,” said Henry Zimmer, an associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If you’re a civilian living in rural Colombia and you have a drone that can drop bombs from hundreds of feet above you, if you can fly explosives and explode them, then you’re really unreliable.”
The country faces another challenge with its rapidly evolving strategy and ability to combat extremist equipment. At risk are hundreds of millions of US military aid, tied to the country’s certification process of commitment to the drug war.
Colombia has narrowly shunned announcements over the past few years, but data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found it could not reduce the illegal growth of coca crops that have risen annually over the past decade.
By September 15th, President Donald Trump will decide whether to cut off aid to Columbia. Alberto Jose Mezia Ferrero, a former Colombian general, said cutting off the supply of resources and technology to the country could undermine efforts to combat extremists. He added, “It’s very bad for our strategy, our approach, especially the very strong relationship that Colombian military and our national police have had with the United States for decades.”
The adoption of drone warfare by extremist groups in Latin America is not unique to Colombia. Already, Mexican cartels are using drones to attack police. In Ecuador, drones targeted the roofs of high-security prisons to force escape.
“I think that’s a big risk in the future,” Ziemer said. “I don’t think the entire region has yet to compromise on the size and potential threat we are looking at.”
