By means of Aleks Phillips & Leonardo RochaBBC News7 hours agoImage caption, Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro blamed army corruption for big losses of palms and ammunition at two basesColombia’s army has misplaced thousands and thousands of bullets, 1000’s of grenades and a number of other missiles, the country’s president has mentioned.Gustavo Petro mentioned the lacking pieces had come to gentle all the way through contemporary inspections of army bases.He blamed the disappearances on inner corruption, announcing army staff offered guns to palms buyers.His defence minister mentioned investigations into the disappearances have been beneath means.”The one means to provide an explanation for this sort of missing [inventory] is that there has existed, for a very long time, networks of folks within the defense force and civilians devoted to mass commercialisation of palms, the usage of felony palms from the Colombian state,” Mr Petro advised a information convention on Tuesday.He mentioned the lacking pieces got here to gentle all the way through wonder visits to 2 army bases – Tolemaida and L. a. Guajira – on 12 February and 1 April, respectively.At Tolemaida, there was once a shortfall of greater than 808,000 bullets and just about 10,000 fewer grenades than the stock indexed on authentic information.In the meantime at L. a. Guajira, the discrepancies integrated just about 4.2 million bullets and greater than 9,300 grenades. Mr Petro additionally mentioned the bottom had misplaced two Spike missiles, 37 Nimrod missiles and 550 rocket-propelled grenades.He advised journalists that the army provides would were handed directly to armed teams inside Colombia, however will have been smuggled to Haiti or the world black marketplace.”The saddest factor about that is that those similar munitions finally end up wounding and killing the similar contributors of the army forces,” the Colombian president mentioned.Colombia has suffered from a long time of battle involving govt forces, left-wing guerrilla teams and right-wing paramilitary forces, through which greater than 450,000 folks were killed.On the similar time, contributors of its army forces were convicted of numerous corruption and human rights abuse fees.Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez advised the similar information convention that investigations into the lacking pieces had begun and that some officers were moved from their posts.He added that additional inspections of army bases around the nation have been being deliberate.The Colombian army is without doubt one of the very best supplied within the area. It has gained billions of greenbacks from the USA to take on drug cartels.
