Asylum and Migration
Colombian Mercenaries Are in Demand in Ukraine: 'I Begged Him on My Knees Not to Go'
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Driven by economic hardship and military backgrounds from Colombia's civil war, many Colombians are recruited via social media to fight in Ukraine for high salaries. Diana Rodríguez’s husband, Diego Alvarado, left for Ternopil in May 2024 after seeing recruitment videos promising 19 million pesos monthly, but he was killed in action. Rodríguez now supports other families through lawyer Carlos Ramírez’s non-profit organization, La voz de los que no estan, which assists relatives of missing or deceased Colombian fighters. The group currently represents around four hundred families struggling to obtain information from Ukrainian authorities regarding their loved ones who died or went missing while serving on the front lines.
Ozetta summarises; the reporting is the newsroom's