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After more than 60 years of brutal armed conflict that tore apart communities across Colombia, dozens of former rebels who recently laid down their weapons to embrace civilian life now stand on edge, their hard-won transition at risk of unraveling as a hardline right-wing administration prepares to take power.

Derlis Aizama, 24, and Daniel Paredes, a former guerrilla couple who met while fighting together with the National Coordinating Committee of the Bolivarian Army, traded their arms for a quiet domestic life just two months ago. They are among 99 ex-combatants from the group — which controls strategic cocaine-producing territories along Colombia’s border with Ecuador — who finalized a disarmament agreement with outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro, marking the most significant success of Petro’s signature “total peace” initiative. That initiative aimed to end decades of violence by negotiating with fragmented remaining armed groups, building on the landmark 2016 peace deal that disbanded the once-formidable FARC rebel army.

But when US-backed president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella is inaugurated this Friday, that hard-won agreement will hang in the balance. De la Espriella campaigned on a hardline security platform, tapping into widespread public anxiety over a recent surge in violence that has reached its highest level in a decade. He has explicitly pledged to abandon Petro’s negotiation strategy, promising instead to launch an all-out military offensive against remaining armed groups. He has also announced plans to dismantle the special transitional court established by the 2016 peace deal, which was created to try the conflict’s worst atrocities, and eliminate the government peace office that oversees negotiations with armed groups.

For the ex-combatants waiting in a special reintegration zone in Colombia’s southern Putumayo region, the incoming administration’s policies have created a climate of deep fear and uncertainty. De la Espriella has given all active combatants until inauguration day to surrender, warning those who do not will face only “death or prison.”

“We are here because we want to rebuild our lives, to create a home,” Aizama told AFP in an interview from the reintegration zone, adding that she already feels unsafe amid the looming policy shift.

Darwin, a 32-year-old ex-guerrilla who declined to share his surname for security reasons, said he joined the group decades ago because a lack of economic opportunity in his coca-growing region left him with few other options. Since laying down his weapon, he has thrown himself into reading — counting the classic fairy tale *Cinderella* among his favorite works — and has no interest in returning to armed conflict. Still, he admitted, “It makes us a little nervous.”

Mauricio Zambrano, another ex-combatant in the zone, has built a makeshift gym using cement blocks and metal pipes as weights to help fellow former fighters distract themselves from the uncertainty. He noted that de la Espriella made “very drastic comments” after his election victory, though the incoming president has not issued any specific statements about the 99 disarmed ex-combatants in Putumayo.

Many ex-fighters in the zone are continuing their education, working to finish high school while trapped in a legal limbo, waiting for clarity on their future. Armando Novoa, the government negotiator who brokered the June disarmament deal, has tried to reassure the group that existing legal protections will shield their agreement. Under international humanitarian law, Novoa argued, the disarmed ex-combatants — who are now defenseless and no longer engaged in combat — are entitled to legal protection. “It would be true institutional suicide to ignore this reality and throw 99 people back into the arms of violence and weapons,” he told AFP.

Critics of Petro’s peace strategy argue that armed groups have used negotiation periods to consolidate power and expand their territorial control, a criticism that helped fuel public support for de la Espriella’s hardline platform. For the 99 ex-combatants who have already given up their weapons, however, the incoming policy shift leaves their dream of a peaceful civilian life hanging in the balance.

A weeks-long migration dispute that exposed deep internal divisions within the European Union has been de-escalated, after EU interior ministers reached a fragile compromise during tense talks in Brussels this Tuesday. The conflict was triggered last week when more than 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish sovereign enclave on the North African coast, triggering one of the bloc’s worst border security crises in recent years. Speaking to journalists after three hours of closed-door negotiations, Magnus Brunner, the EU’s top migration official, framed the incident as a major stress test for three core pillars of European integration: the bloc’s external border management, its ability to counter disinformation, and the principle of solidarity between member states.

Brunner claimed that the bloc ultimately emerged from the challenge successfully, stating, “It was a crisis, but now fortunately, it has been resolved.” Spanish authorities have moved rapidly to repatriate the vast majority of the new arrivals, confirming Tuesday that just 2,000 of the 72,000 crossers remain in Ceuta. Officials also updated the death toll for the crossing Tuesday, raising the confirmed number of migrants who died attempting to reach the enclave from 72 to 75.

Images of tens of thousands of migrants flowing across the border became immediate political fodder for right-wing groups across Europe and North America, who framed the crisis as proof that the continent faces an existential threat from uncontrolled immigration. The incident left the Spanish government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez isolated within the bloc, with 22 of the 27 EU member states backing a joint statement calling for stricter action on irregular migration that implicitly blamed Spain’s more open migration approach for the crisis. Hardline governments including Italy and Denmark even called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen Area, the bloc’s border-free travel zone – a proposal that Madrid rejected firmly, noting that such a suspension is not permitted under existing EU law. Sanchez lashed out at other member states over the weekend in a letter to EU institutional leaders, calling their response to the crisis selfish.

Many had expected Tuesday’s meeting to devolve into an acrimonious public showdown, but leaders across the bloc instead moved to downplay divisions and emphasize unity. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska described the tone of the talks as “absolutely constructive”, while French interior official Laurent Nunez echoed that “all member states, without exception, affirmed their solidarity with Spain”. France had previously refused to join the 22-nation statement, arguing it exploited the crisis for domestic political gain.

Hardline states struck a more conciliatory tone as well: Denmark’s immigration minister Morten Bodskov said his country was “very satisfied” with Spain’s handling of the emergency, though he reiterated that the event underscored the need for strict control of the EU’s external borders. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been one of the most vocal critics of Sanchez’s policy, particularly its plan to grant legal status to undocumented migrants already residing in Italy. Still, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi opened his remarks by expressing “sincere solidarity” with Spain before doubling down on his government’s call for stricter migration rules.

Over the past several months, pressure from hardline governments including Italy has pushed the EU to tighten its migration framework significantly, including new rules that allow member states to transfer failed asylum seekers to off-shore “return hubs” outside the bloc’s borders. Piantedosi used Tuesday’s meeting to push for a broader expansion of this model, calling on all EU states to adopt the framework of Italy’s recent deal with Albania to host off-shore return centers. He also argued that the bloc should use trade leverage to pressure Morocco, which he accused of failing to cooperate on migrant repatriation while benefiting from preferential trade access to the European single market.

The final joint statement issued after the meeting praised Spain for its “swift and effective” response to the crisis, noting that no migrants had moved onward from Ceuta to mainland Spain or other EU member states. However, the statement also implicitly acknowledged missteps in the bloc’s collective response, admitting that cross-member communication during such crises could be made “more coherent”, confirming that the EU’s initial response fell short of this standard.