Colombian president Gustavo Petro said last week that a significant amount of military equipment, including millions of rounds of ammunition and even missiles were missing from two army bases in the country, shaking up the national conversation given the large amount of firepower it amounted to.
However, figures seen by Reuters suggest that even though there is missing equipment, the actual magnitude is much lower. The military report, the outlet said, listed over 131,000 missing bullets (compared to the 1.6 million claimed by Petro) and under 6,000 explosive munitions. It didn't mention missing missiles (Petro pointed to two Spike missiles and 37 Nimrod missiles).
Neither the presidency nor the defense ministry commented on the story, but two sources told the outlet that Petro read a wrong column from the report, leading him to give incorrect figure.
Local journalist Jorge Eduardo Espinosa had issued the same rebuttal, saying that a large part of the weapons cache might not be loaded into the system but still be in the bases.
"There are periodical revisions in the military bases: vehicles, ammo, arms. It's odd that no one notices when strategic material is missing. Did the president read the wrong column?," Espinosa said on X.
"The missing material is in a certain column is the one that hasn't been loaded into the system. It doesn't mean it's missing, but it means it hasn't been loaded. Another column does hint what's missing and that of course needs to be investigated," he added.
Colombian general Helder Giraldo said an investigation was launched to determine the exact amount of missing ammunition, but denied any missiles had been subtracted. He did echo Petro's statements about members of the army being involved in selling arms to "organized armed groups in the country."
Giraldo added that members accused of being part of this scheme have been removed from their posts and face criminal charges, but declined to say how were implicated.
Petro said last week that chances are the weapons ended in "networks dedicated to the mass trade of weapons." He added that recipients could include both local and foreign criminal organizations, including those currently sowing chaos in Haiti.
"This shows that mobs have penetrated our institutions through false ideologies. That ammo might be killing our law enforcement officials, our citizens and, perhaps, young people and those in Haiti and elsewhere in the world."
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