Ten-year-old Dilan Camilo Erazo Yela gathered with friends to play soccer on a Tuesday night in July 2024 in El Plateado, Colombia. Around 9:20 p.m., a drone appeared overhead and dropped an explosive on the turf field where the children played. Video footage posted on social media the next day showed Dilan lying on a gurney with his light blue T-shirt pulled up to his neck, as medical personnel tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.

Dilan’s fifth-grade teacher described him as quiet and respectful. “He was a boy who had dreams, and one of them was to be a great cyclist,” Dilan’s uncle, Rubiel Yela, told Colombia’s Caracol Radio after his nephew died. “He loved riding his bike around town. He loved his studies, spent time with his family and friends, and was very affectionate.”

Ten-year-old Dilan Camilo Erazo Yela gathered with friends to play soccer on a Tuesday night in July 2024 in El Plateado, Colombia. Around 9:20 p.m., a drone appeared overhead and dropped an explosive on the turf field where the children played. Video footage posted on social media the next day showed Dilan lying on a gurney with his light blue T-shirt pulled up to his neck, as medical personnel tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.

Dilan’s fifth-grade teacher described him as quiet and respectful. “He was a boy who had dreams, and one of them was to be a great cyclist,” Dilan’s uncle, Rubiel Yela, told Colombia’s Caracol Radio after his nephew died. “He loved riding his bike around town. He loved his studies, spent time with his family and friends, and was very affectionate.”

The drone attack that killed Dilan injured 12 others, including an 11-year-old boy who suffered a chest wound and a 2-year-old girl who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to regional authorities. Colombia’s military blamed the attack on the Jacobo Arenas Western Bloc of the Central General Staff, or EMC, a coalition of dissident groups from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The EMC was formed of dissident FARC commanders and fighters who rejected the group’s 2016 peace agreement with the Colombian government. The rebel faction was “sowing despair and terror” in the area in retaliation for the military targeting the group, Colombian army Brig. Gen. Federico Mejía said in a video posted on social media. After first denying responsibility for Dilan’s killing, the EMC later acknowledged that it was to blame, calling the attack accidental.

More than two years later, the strike has become emblematic of how armed groups in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America are increasingly using commercial-grade aerial drones to launch attacks, with civilians caught in........

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