Colombia, explosive drone attacks against police stations multiply in Cauca

In the locality of El Carmelo, municipality of Cajibío, in the Colombian department of Cauca, the police substation was hit by a drone loaded with explosives. This was reported by the Defensoría del Pueblo, Colombia’s human rights institution.

“Fue atacada la subestación de Policía en El Carmelo, Cajibío” (transl. from Spanish) — Defensoría del Pueblo

During the same period, a separate attack occurred in a different municipality of the same region, Inzá, against troops of the Colombian National Army. In the attack on the Cajibío substation, three police officers were injured and were evacuated for medical care.

The phenomenon is not limited to the two most recent episodes. According to the Defensoría del Pueblo, between January and May 2026 drone attacks in the country increased by 146% compared to the corresponding period the previous year. Authorities also counted 47 drone attacks in eight municipalities of the department of Cauca over the course of a single week, a pace that signals a rapid spread of this attack technique in a limited geographic area.

The picture emerging from institutional data is one of an attack technique — explosive-laden drones — that has spread rapidly in the region, hitting both police installations and military positions. The sources available, the Defensoría del Pueblo and the news reports citing it, do not for now provide an overall national count of injuries, only the two most recent episodes and the aggregate data on the increase in cases. It is not stated, in the same reports, whether authorities have already identified those responsible for the individual attacks or whether there is a formal claim of responsibility linked to one or more armed groups active in the region.

Based on these figures, Cauca remains the area with the highest concentration of drone attacks recorded in the country in recent weeks, and the 47 episodes counted in a single week in eight municipalities make it the most up-to-date indicator of the scale of the phenomenon.