Mother getting young children ready

‘Baby boom’ among Colombian rebels was a sign of hope. Now the families face uncertainty.

Former FARC guerrillas fear their new families will be caught up in old cycles of violence if the peace agreement crumbles.

At the Anorí demobilization camp in Colombia, Luz Arelis Duque, 32, looks after her eight-year-old daughter María Isabel and her three-year-old neighbor Camila. María Isabel was born before the 2016 peace deal; Duque, a fighter with the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia (FARC), was forced to give her up. Once the peace agreement was signed, she and her husband were reunited with their daughter. "The first words she told us were, 'You are not my parents,'" says Duque. "It took several months for her to warm up to us. We were not prepared for that."

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