Children used as Human Bombs
...there is an alternative to the culture of death...
The short life of 11 year old Irwin Orlando Ropero ended on Maundy Thursday, 17th April 2003, when he was used as a child bomb in an attack on a military checkpoint in Fortul, a small town in the Department of Arauca, Colombia.
According to reports in El Colombiano and El Tiempo, Irwin often used to run errands in order to support his elderly grandparents. He was delighted when he was offered a thousand pesos (about £ 0.22 or US$ 0.33 ) to deliver a bicycle to La Y, a well-known meeting place on the outskirts of Fortul. But what he did not know was that the tubes of the bicycle had been stuffed with explosives.
When Irwin was passing through the checkpoint someone triggered the bomb by remote control. The boy was killed in the blast, and three men and a woman were injured.
Irwin is the second child in less than a year to have been used as a human bomb in Colombia. On 20th April 2002 Juan Carlos Galvis, aged 14, was out walking with his eight-year-old brother in Acevedo, in the Department of Huila. The boys were asked to take a pack horse to a place where some muleteers were meant to be awaiting it. However, the horse's packs were filled with explosives, and when they were passing through a checkpoint, the bomb was set off, again by remote control. Juan Carlos and two peasants were killed, and the younger boy was gravely injured.
The Colombian authorities have accused the FARC guerrillas of responsibility for both of these atrocities, as well as for several other similar acts of terrorism in which civilians have been killed by remote-controlled bombs which they had been tricked into transporting.
In a forthright condemnation of Irwin's murder, Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, the Archbishop of Bogotá, proclaimed those responsible to be "cursed with the mark of Cain".
Fr Peter Walters, the Founder and Director of Let The Children Live!, agreed. "Irwin's blood cries out to Heaven for justice," he said. "The term 'child-abuse' is so over-used nowadays that we have no language left to convey the horror of such atrocities as children being used as human bombs."
"Whilst the world's attention is focused on events in Iraq, the conflict in Colombia continues to intensify and to claim the lives of children," Fr Peter explained. "In cities such as Medellín, paramilitary and guerrilla groups are trying to force youngsters to join them. They will not respect the neutrality of children and other civilians. As far as they are concerned, those who are not for them, are against them, and must accept the consequences."
Through Funvini, its Colombian counterpart, Let The Children Live! is currently working with some 660 boys and girls in the streets and shanty-towns of Medellín. "Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we will continue to offer these youngsters an alternative to the culture of death in which they are growing up," Fr Peter said. "But we badly need more funds in order to prevent them from being caught up in the conflict like young Irwin and Juan Carlos."
