The murder of five students at a farm in Buga, in south-western Colombia, on January 24 highlights the fragility of the 2016 peace deal which brought to an end more than five decades of civil conflict between successive governments and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). January 2021 was the most violent month since the peace deal was signed, with 12 mass killings and total of 45 people murdered, according to the Colombian NGO INDEPAZ. The United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia and Human Rights Watch have recorded the deaths of 261 FARC ex-combatants and more than 400 human rights defenders and social leaders since 2016. Colombia’s savage civil war between the central government and members of the left-wing FARC militia finally came to an end in November 2016 after years of negotiation. An initial referendum on the deal on October 2 was rejected by 50.2% of voters, but after further negotiation, an amended peace deal was finally signed at the Colón Theatre in Bogotá on November 24, and ratified by Colombia’s Congress on November 30. This date officially marks the end of the armed conflict in Colombia.