Colombian president posts video purporting to show 23 ‘neutralised’ guerrillas in body bags

Footage provokes outrage, as bellicose and performative far-right politics continue to spread across Americas

Colombia’s hardline president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has provoked outrage after posting a social media video in which he strides through rows of white body bags that he said contained the corpses of 23 “neutralised” guerrillas.

De La Espriella took power last month vowing “all-out war” against illegal armed groups and he published the footage on Thursday in an apparent attempt to show he was fulfilling that pledge.