Weekly Report - 21 March 2013 (WR-13-11)

The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) blew up a section of the railway track linking Colombia’s largest coal mine, Cerrejόn, to the coast on 14 March, as a freight train was passing, derailing 17 wagons laden with 1,870 tonnes of coal. Just 24 hours earlier the government had managed to reach a deal with the coal miners’ union Sintracarbόn to end the strike at Cerrejόn, located in the northernmost department of Guajira, which was costing the economy an estimated US$3m a day.