A US-based rights group has blamed left-wing rebels for making Colombia the country with the highest number of landmine victims in the world.

Human Rights Watch says more than 1,000 people were killed by anti-personnel mines in Colombia last year, up from less than 300 in 2001.

The Farc rebel group often places landmines in civilian areas.

The group said the number of civilian victims had increased from 66 in the year 2000, to more than 300 last year.

Child victims

Every day, Marxist guerrillas battered by the US-backed security forces are sowing more home-made mines, known as foot breakers.

The guerrillas have perfected the production of these mines using household items like PVC piping and syringes with the rubber taken out, which act as plungers.

It means the mines can be made for as little as $15 (£7).

Human Rights Watch has detailed the damage inflicted by these weapons, not just on the security forces but on civilians, especially children who play in the woods and jungles near their home and trigger the explosives.

More than three victims a day were registered last year, making Colombia the country with the most landmine victims in the world.

Driven into their mountain jungle strongholds, the guerrillas now protect their encampment drug laboratories and movement corridors by scattering mines.

Few maps are made of where the mines are laid, and since the home-made varieties contain very little metal, they are extremely difficult to detect and so sensitive that even sniffer dogs can detonate them.

What human-rights observers fear is that they will claim victims in Colombia for generations to come.

We live in a building that overlooks one of the only golf courses in the city. Today i finally got to whack a couple balls off the driving range. Surrounded by 60 m high gum trees, the smell of cut grass, and the sound of the little river passing through the middle of the course, i felt a million miles away from the melancholy madness that is Med de geen.

On a side note: they will be digging up the golf course to make way for 2 main roads.

 Idiots, there’s enough parking spaces on that course for at least 10 000 cars. 

Yesterday was interesting. We had nation wide protests.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in every town and city, to call for an end to all of farc’s bullshit. The reason for the marches was the cold blooded execution a couple of days ago of 10 government official that they had kidnapped over the years. No reason for the massacre.

At 12pm every driver in the city here sat on their hooters. People came out into the roads waving white flags. For a short 15 minutes it felt like the whole country was telling Farc to F Off.

Colombia remains the world’s kidnap capital, with about 1,900 kidnappings a year. Some people have been help captive for over 10 years now. Just the other day a hostage  managed to escaped after 7 years in the jungle.

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
The Farc is the oldest and largest group among Colombia’s left-wing rebels - and one of the world’s richest and most powerful guerrilla armies.

The group was founded in 1964, when it declared its intention to use armed struggle to overthrow the government and install a Marxist regime.

But tactics changed in the 1990s, as right-wing paramilitary forces attacked the rebels, and the Farc became increasingly involved in the drug trade to raise money for its campaign.

Some analysts believe the group has lost its political vision and that drugs have changed the way it fights. Kidnapping and extortion are now often an end in themselves.

The group is on US and European lists of terrorist organisations.

Farc would gladly like to thank all its supporters. They can be found snorting coke in club, pubs and living rooms all around the world.