Data leaked by a former employee reveals more than 800 records of these sites from 1989 to 2018, and indicates the company had failed to report about a fifth of them.

The BBC has also obtained figures showing the company has spilled oil hundreds of times since then.

Ecopetrol says it complies fully with Colombian law and has industry-leading practices on sustainability.

The company’s main refinery is in Barrancabermeja, 260km (162 miles) north of the Colombian capital Bogota.

The huge cluster of processing plants, industrial chimneys and storage tanks stretches for close to 2km (1.2 miles) along the banks of Colombia’s longest river, the Magdalena – a water source for millions of people.

Members of the fishing community there believe oil pollution is affecting wildlife in the river.

The wider area is home to endangered river turtles, manatees and spider monkeys, and is part of a species-rich hotspot in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. Nearby wetlands include a protected habitat for jaguars.

When the BBC visited last June, families were fishing together in waterways criss-crossed by oil pipelines.

One local said some of the fish they caught released the pungent smell of crude oil as they were cooked.

In places, a film with iridescent swirls could be seen on the surface of the water – a distinctive signature of contamination by oil.

A fisherman dived down in the water and brought up a clump of vegetation caked in dark slime.

Pointing to it, Yuly Velásquez, president of Fedepesan, a federation of fishing organisations in the region, said: “This is all grease and waste that comes directly from the Ecopetrol refinery.”

Ecopetrol, which is 88% owned by the Colombian state and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, rejects the fishers’ claims that it is polluting the water.

In response to the BBC’s questions, it says it has efficient wastewater treatment systems and effective contingency plans for oil spills.

Andrés Olarte, the whistleblower who has shared the company’s data, says pollution by the firm dates back many years.

He joined Ecopetrol in 2017 and started working as an adviser to the CEO. He says he soon realised “something was wrong”.

Mr Olarte says he challenged managers about what he describes as “awful” pollution data, but was rebuffed with reactions such as: “Why are you asking these questions? You’re not getting what this job is about.”

He left the company in 2019, and shared a large amount of company data with US-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and later with the BBC. The BBC has verified it came from Ecopetrol’s servers.

One database he has shared, dated January 2019, contains a list of 839 so-called “unresolved environmental impacts” across Colombia.

Ecopetrol uses this term to mean areas where oil is not fully cleaned up from soil and water. The data shows that, as of 2019, some of these sites had remained polluted in this way for over a decade.

Mr Olarte alleges that the firm was trying to hide some of them from Colombian authorities, pointing to about a fifth of the records labelled “only known to Ecopetrol”.

“You could see a category in the Excel where it lists which one is hidden from an authority and which one is not, which shows the process of hiding stuff from the government,” says Mr Olarte.

The BBC filmed at one of the sites marked “only known to Ecopetrol”, which was dated 2017 in the database. Seven years later, a thick, black, oily-looking substance with plastic containment barriers around it was visible along the edge of a section of wetland.

Ecopetrol’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, Felipe Bayón, told the BBC he strongly denied suggestions that there was any policy to withhold information about pollution.

“I say to you with complete confidence that there is not, and was not any policy nor any instruction saying, ‘these things can’t be shared’,” he said.

Mr Bayón blamed sabotage for many oil spills.

Colombia has a long history of armed conflict, and illegal armed groups have targeted oil facilities – but “theft” or “attack” are only mentioned for 6% of the cases listed in the database.

He also said he believed there had been a “significant advance” since then in solving problems that lead to oil pollution.

However, a separate set of data shows Ecopetrol has continued to pollute.

Figures obtained by the BBC from Colombia’s environmental regulator, the Autoridad Nacional de Licencias Ambientales (Anla), show Ecopetrol has reported hundreds of oil spills per year since 2020.

Asked about the 2019 database of polluted sites, Ecopetrol admits it has records of 839 environmental incidents, but disputes that all of them were classed as “unresolved”.

The firm says 95% of polluted sites that have been classed as unresolved since 2018 have now been cleaned up.

It says all pollution incidents are subject to a management process and are reported to the regulator.

The data from the regulator includes hundreds of spills in the Barrancabermeja area where Ms Velásquez and the fishers live.

The fisherwoman and her colleagues have been monitoring biodiversity in the area’s wetlands, which feed into the Magdalena River.

She said there had been a “massacre” of fauna. “This year, there were three dead manatees, five dead buffalo. We found more than 10 caimans. We found turtles, capybaras, birds, thousands of dead fish,” she said last June.

It is not clear what caused the deaths – the El Niño weather phenomenon and climate change may be factors.

A 2022 study by the University of Nottingham lists pollution – from oil production and other industrial and domestic sources – as one factor among several, including climate change, that are degrading the Magdalena river basin.

Mr Olarte left Ecopetrol in 2019. He moved to his family home near Barrancabermeja, and says he met with an old contact to ask about job openings. Soon afterwards, he says an anonymous caller rang his phone threatening to kill him.

“In the call I understood they thought I had put complaints against Ecopetrol, which was not the case,” he says.

Mr Olarte says more threats followed, including a note that he showed to the BBC. He does not know who made the threats and there is no evidence that Ecopetrol ordered them.

Ms Velásquez and seven other people also told the BBC they had received death threats after challenging Ecopetrol.

She said an armed group had fired warning shots at her house and spray-painted the word “leave” on the wall.

The fisherwoman is now protected by armed bodyguards paid for by the government, but the threats have continued.

Asked about the threats Mr Olarte described, the former CEO Mr Bayón said they were “absolutely unacceptable”.

“I want to make it totally clear… that never, at any time, was there any order of that sort,” Mr Bayón said.

Ms Velásquez and Mr Olarte both know the risks are real. Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders, according to the NGO Global Witness, with 79 killed in 2023.

Experts say such killings are linked to Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict, in which government forces and paramilitaries allied to them have fought left-wing rebel groups.

Despite government attempts to end the conflict, armed groups and drug cartels remain active in parts of the country.

Matthew Smith, an oil analyst and financial journalist based in Colombia, says he does not believe Ecopetrol managers are involved in threats by armed groups.

But he says there is an “immense” overlap between former paramilitary groups and the private security sector.

Private security firms often employ former members of paramilitary groups and compete for lucrative contracts to protect oil facilities, he says.

Mr Olarte has shared internal Ecopetrol emails showing that in 2018, the company paid a total of $65m to more than 2,800 private security companies.

“There is always that risk of some sort of contagion between the private security companies, the types of people they employ, and their desire to continually maintain their contract,” Mr Smith says.

He says this could potentially even include kidnapping or murdering community leaders or environmental defenders in order to “ensure that Ecopetrol’s operations proceed smoothly”.

Mr Bayón said he was “convinced that the checks and due diligence were done” regarding the company’s relationships with private security companies.

Ecopetrol says it has never had relationships with illegal armed groups. It says it has a strong due diligence process and carries out human rights impact assessments for its activities.

The BBC contacted other members of Ecopetrol’s former leadership from the time of Mr Olarte’s employment, who strongly deny the allegations in this report.

Now living in Germany, Mr Olarte has been submitting complaints about Ecopetrol’s environmental record to the Colombian authorities and the company itself – so far, without meaningful result.

He has also been in a series of legal cases against Ecopetrol and its management, related to his employment there, which are as yet unresolved.

“I did this in defence of my home, of my land, of my region, of my people,” he says.

Mr Bayón stressed the economic and social importance of Ecopetrol to Colombia.

“We have 1.5 million families who don’t have access to energy or who cook with firewood and coal,” he said. “I believe that we must continue to rely on clean production of oil, gas, all energy sources, to transition without ending an industry that is so important for Colombians.”

And Ms Velásquez remains determined to continue speaking out, despite the threats.

“If we don’t go fishing, we don’t eat,” she said. “If we speak and report, we are killed… And if we don’t report, we kill ourselves, because all these incidents of heavy pollution are destroying the environment around us.”

Heavy rain began lashing Bahía Blanca in Buenos Aires province at about 04:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Friday, turning streets into rivers and leaving large parts of the city without electricity.

At a local hospital, new-born babies had to be evacuated after flood waters invaded the building. Elsewhere, more than 40 families have had to leave their homes and the airport has been closed.

Local authorities closed schools and suspended public transport. They warned residents to stay at home until further notice.

The authorities said up to 250mm (10in) of rain had already fallen, with another 50-100mm expected before the storm abates.

The city normally receives about 600-650mm of rain a year.

Images shared on social media showed cars being carried off by raging flood waters.

“Due to the climate emergency and in order to protect the safety of residents, the Municipality of Bahía Blanca orders the absolute cessation of all types of activities until further notice,” local officials said.

Bahía Blanca is under a state of emergency and the authorities have opened several evacuation centres in different parts of the city.

Bahía Blanca, a city with about a third of a million inhabitants, is a major port in the south-western part of Buenos Aires province.

Argentina’s Meteorological Service issued a red alert for storms in the area, saying further heavy rains would be accompanied by winds of up to 90 km/h and occasional hail.

The sale comes after weeks of complaining by President Donald Trump that the canal is under Chinese control and that the US should take control of the major shipping route.

Through a subsidiary, CK Hutchison Holding operates ports at the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean entrances to the canal.

It said Tuesday that it would sell its interests as part of a deal worth $22.8bn (£17.8bn).

CK Hutchison, founded by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, is not owned by the Chinese government. But its base in Hong Kong means it operates under Chinese financial laws. It has operated the ports since 1997.

The deal includes a total of 43 ports in 23 countries around the world, including the two canal terminals. It will require approval by the Panamanian government.

The 51-mile (82km) Panama Canal cuts across the central American nation and is the main link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Up to 14,000 ships travel through it each year, including container ships carrying cars, natural gas and other goods, and military vessels.

It was built in the early 1900s. The US maintained control over the canal zone until 1977, when treaties gradually ceded the land back to Panama.

After a period of joint control, Panama took sole control in 1999.

Trump has made several arguments for retaking control of the canal and the surrounding area. He argued that Chinese influence is a national security threat, that the US investment in the initial building of the canal justifies taking back control, and that US ships are charged too much for using the waterway.

In a visit to Panama in February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded that the country make “immediate changes” to what he calls the “influence and control” of China over the canal.

Panama rejected the US government claims and President Jose Raul Mulino has said the canal “is and will remain” in the central American country’s hands.

In a statement announcing the business deal, Frank Sixt, co-managing director of CK Hutchison, said: “I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports.”

BlackRock is one of the world’s largest asset management companies. The group buying the ports also includes Terminal Investment Limited, a Swiss company.

The crash happened early on Saturday about 5km (3 miles) from the south-western city of Uyuni.

One of the drivers was receiving intensive care while the other was in a stable condition, police commander Wilson Flores said.

Images published in Bolivian media showed a badly damaged coach with its bodywork ripped off and luggage scattered on the roadside.

The buses collided on the route between Uyuni and Colchani in Bolivia’s Potosí department after a “lane invasion”, local media reported.

One bus was travelling to the western city of Oruro, where Oruro Carnival – one of Latin America’s largest festivals – was taking place.

The vehicles were recovered by 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT) and those injured were taken to hospitals in both Oruro and Potosí.

Those who died have not been identified and the condition of the injured is yet to be determined.

According to local media, Cdr Flores said police were awaiting the results of alcohol tests taken by the drivers.

Deadly traffic accidents are common in Bolivia. More than 30 people were killed in February when a bus plunged almost 800m (2625 ft) into a ravine between the cities of Potosí and Oruro.

In January, 19 people were killed when another bus came off a road in the same region, also near Potosí.

An average of 1,400 people die in road accidents every year in the country of about 12 million inhabitants, according to government data.

A state of emergency was declared, with a curfew in affected areas, where soldiers have been deployed.

The Viña del Mar festival, the largest music event in Latin America, has had its third day cancelled.

Hospitals and prisons across the country are on emergency generators and transport is severely disrupted. The government blamed a system failure.

Addressing the nation on TV, President Gabriel Boric said eight million homes had been affected, but power had been restored to about half of them.

“What happened today is outrageous,” he said. “It’s intolerable that one or several companies should affect the everyday life of millions of Chileans, and that’s why it’s the state’s duty to hold them responsible.”

The national service for disaster prevention and response said earlier that the outage stretched from the regions of Arica and Parinacota in the north to Los Lagos in the south.

Reuters news agency reported that the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida, was without power, citing a source close to the matter.

Latam Airlines said some of its flights might also be disrupted while power supplies were down, and urged passengers to check their journey status.

In a post on X, the Santiago Metro operator said its service had been temporarily suspended because of the power outage, with stations being evacuated and closed.

Footage from the city showed passengers being evacuated from stations by walking up switched-off escalators, while traffic signals were also shown not working.

There were also long queues for buses which were still running on the city’s roads.

María Angélica Román, 45, told AFP news agency: “They let us leave work because of the power cut, but now I don’t know how we will get home, because all the buses are full.”

Chile’s Interior Minister, Carolina Tohá, also posted on X to say that a meeting would be called to discuss the continuing measures to restore services.

Reinaldo Araujo, a leader of the Vente Venezuela party in Trujillo state, had been suffering from health problems, which his wife said were not treated while he was in prison.

Vente Venezuela’s leader, María Corina Machado, said she held “the regime” of Nicolás Maduro responsible for Araujo’s death.

According to the Venezuelan Prison Observatory NGO, 20 political prisoners have died while in custody over the past few years.

Vente Venezuela said Araujo had been seized by masked men on 9 January during a protest on the eve of the swearing in of Nicolás Maduro for a third term as president.

His wife said he had been returning from a medical appointment and had merely been observing the protest when he was taken away.

He had been in state custody since then.

His wife accuses the authorities of failing to providing her husband with medical care until it was too late, even though she had warned them that his health had been deteriorating.

The head of the regional body Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, denounced Araujo’s death, writing on X that it was a “new atrocity of the regime”.

He added: “No more political prisoners, no more torture, no more death.”

Almagro has been an outspoken critic of Nicolás Maduro, accusing the Venezuelan leader of repressing the opposition in the run-up and the aftermath of July’s presidential election.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), a body closely aligned with the government, declared Maduro the winner of the election without providing detailed voting tallies to back up their claim.

The OAS’s electoral observation department said it could not recognise the result because the CNE “was biased towards the government”.

Venezuela’s opposition coalition also refused to recognise the result, saying that voting tallies it had gathered, with the help of official election observers, showed that its candidate, Edmundo González, was the overwhelming winner.

The opposition also organised protests on the eve of Maduro’s swearing in and it was at one such event that Reinaldo Araujo was seized.

According to the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, hundreds of protesters were arrested in the days leading up to Maduro’s inauguration and sent to jails notorious for the mistreatment of detainees.

Among those seized was Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of Edmundo González.

Mr Tudares’s wife says she has not been given any information about her husband’s whereabouts since he was taken away by the security forces on 7 January.

She also accused the government of holding her husband in order to exert pressure on Edmundo González, who is living in exile and has been meeting presidents across the region, many of whom have recognised him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

The vehicle plunged almost 800m (2625 ft) into a ravine in the southwestern district of Yocalla, an officer said.

Fourteen people were also injured, including four children, an official from a local hospital said in a video.

Bolivia has notoriously dangerous roads, particularly in mountainous areas.

The accident happened between the cities of Potosí and Oruro, police said.

Officials believe that the crash could have been caused by speeding, with the driver “unable” to control the bus, police colonel Victor Benavides told the AFP news agency.

This is believed to be the most serious road accident reported in the South American country so far this year.

Local news outlet Unitel reported that several of those injured were in a serious condition.

Deadly road accidents are common in Bolivia.

Last month, 19 people were killed when another bus came off a road, also near Potosí.

Road accidents kill an average of 1,400 people every year in the country of about 12 million inhabitants, according to government data.

The 69-year-old was handed five charges over the alleged bid to prevent his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office after a bitter election race.

The charges include allegations that he planned to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing and says he is the victim of political persecution.

The prosecutor’s advice will now be considered by the Supreme Court. If accepted, Bolsonaro and 33 others will be formally charged and will have to face trial.

The former president was banned from running for office for eight years after being accused of undermining Brazilian democracy by falsely claiming that electronic ballots used in the October 2022 poll were vulnerable to hacking and fraud.

The bitterly fought election was won by an extremely narrow margin by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known more commonly as Lula.

Bolsonaro never publicly acknowledged his defeat and left Brazil for the US two days before Lula was sworn in as president.

On 8 January 2023, his supporters stormed government buildings in the capital Brasilia. Parts of the buildings were ransacked and police arrested 1,500 of the rioters.

Three months ago, the federal police released a report accusing Bolsonaro of playing a lead role in planning and organising an attempted coup – including by proposing the idea to key figures in the military – to stop Lula taking power.

The document charging Bolsonaro says the responsibility for acts that were harmful to democratic order lies with a criminal organisation led by Bolsonaro himself.

In practice, this means legal proceedings are beginning and Bolsonaro will likely face a trial.

One of the charges is for the crime of “armed criminal organisation”, allegedly led by Bolsonaro and his vice-presidential candidate Walter Braga Netto.

The alleged plot included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, one of Bolsonaro’s rivals, Attorney-General Paulo Gonet Branco said.

“Allied with other individuals, including civilians and military personnel, they attempted to prevent, in a coordinated manner, the result of the 2022 presidential elections from being fulfilled,” he said.

Brazilian media reports that the Supreme Court is expected to proceed with the trial later this year.

Reaction to the prosecutor’s decision shows that the divisions that have marked Brazilian politics for the past decade remain as deep as ever.

Government supporters are celebrating and saying the former president belongs in jail, while the opposition insist he’s innocent.

The focus now is on the impact the Supreme Court decision will have on next year’s presidential election. Recent opinion polls show record levels of rejection for President Lula.

Despite being banned from running for office, Bolsonaro remains a strong political force in Brazil and could use the trial as a platform for his agenda.

Deise Moura dos Anjos, 42, had been in pre-trial detention since January after prosecutors accused her of the murder on Christmas Eve of three relatives and the attempted murder of another three.

The victims had all eaten from the cake, which forensic experts found had been baked with flour contaminated with the deadly poison.

Police were also investigating if she may have killed her father-in-law, who died in September.

Forensic experts who exhumed his body found high levels of arsenic, which led them to believe that he, too, had been poisoned.

Moura dos Anjos denied any wrongdoing but local police chief Cléber dos Santos Lima told reporters last month that he was “certain that she researched, bought (…) and used the poison to kill her victims”.

He added that police had found evidence showing that she had bought arsenic on four separate occasions.

Investigators tested many food items in the home of Moura dos Anjos’s mother-in-law, where the six victims were taken ill, in order to find the source of the poisoning.

Eventually, they found sky-high levels or arsenic in the flour – some of which Moura dos Anjos’s mother-in-law, Zeli dos Anjos, had used to bake the Christmas cake.

As Zeli dos Anjos had herself eaten from the cake and was taken seriously ill, police quickly ruled her out as a suspect even though she had prepared the cake.

Zeli dos Anjos survived but two of her sisters and one of her nieces died.

Her 10-year-old grandson and the husband of one of her sisters were also among those poisoned but recovered.

One day in 1989, Gonzalo Rojas was at school in the Colombian capital of Bogota when a teacher pulled him out of class to deliver some devastating news.

His father, also called Gonzalo, had died in a plane crash that morning.

“I remember leaving and seeing my mum and grandma waiting for me, crying,” says Mr Rojas, who was just 10-years-old at the time. “It was a very, very sad day.”

Minutes after take off, an explosion on board Avianca flight 203 killed the 107 passengers and crew, as well as three people on the ground who were hit by falling debris.

The blast wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate bomb attack by Pablo Escobar and his Medellín cartel.

While an era defined by drug wars, bombings, kidnappings and a sky high murder rate has largely been relegated to Colombia’s past, Escobar’s legacy has not.

The notorious criminal, who was killed by security forces in 1993, has achieved a near cult-like status around the world, immortalised in books, music and TV productions like the Netflix series Narcos.

In Colombia itself, his name and face are adorned on mugs, keychains, and t-shirts in tourist shops catering mainly to curious visitors.

But a proposed law in Colombia’s Congress is seeking to change this.

The bill wants to ban Escobar merchandise – and that of other convicted criminals – to help put an end to the glorification of a drug boss who was central in the global cocaine trade and widely held responsible for at least 4,000 killings.

“Difficult issues that are part of the history and memory of our country cannot simply be remembered by a T-shirt, or a sticker sold on a street corner,” says Juan Sebastián Gómez, Congress member and co-author of the bill.

The proposed law would prohibit the selling, as well as the use and carrying of clothing and items promoting criminals, including Escobar. It would mean fines for those who violated the rules, and a temporary suspension of businesses.

Many vendors selling the goods claim a law prohibiting this merchandise would harm their livelihoods.

“This is terrible. We have a right to work, and these Pablo T-shirts especially always sell well,” says Joana Montoya, who owns a stall stocked full of Escobar merchandise in Comuna 13, a popular tourist zone of Medellín.

Medellín, Escobar’s hometown, was known as “the most dangerous city in the world” in the late 80s and early 90s due to violence associated with drug wars and Colombia’s armed conflict.

Today it’s been revitalised into a hub of innovation and tourism, with vendors eager to cash in on the influx of visitors wanting to take home souvenirs – some related to Escobar.

“This Escobar merchandise benefits many families here – it sustains us. It helps us pay our rent, buy food, look after our kids,” says Ms Montaya, who supports herself and her young daughter.

Ms Montoya says at least 15% of her sales come from Escobar products, but some sellers tell the BBC that for them it’s as much as 60%.

If the bill is approved there would be a defined time period for sellers to familiarise themselves with the new rules and phase out their Escobar stock.

“We’d need a transition phase so that people could stop selling these products and replace them with other ones,” explains Congressman Gómez. He says that Colombia has more interesting things to show than drug lords, and that the association with Escobar has stigmatised the country abroad.

Some of the T-shirts, sold for around £5, bear a catchphrase linked to Escobar – “silver or lead?”. This symbolises the choice the cartel boss gave to those who posed a threat to his criminal operations: accept a bribe or be killed.

Shop assistant María Suarez believes that the profit gained from sales of Escobar merchandise isn’t ethical.

“We need this ban. He did awful things and these souvenirs are things that shouldn’t exist,” she says, explaining that she feels uncomfortable that her boss stocks Escobar items.

Escobar and his Medellín cartel at one point were believed to have controlled 80% of the cocaine entering the US. In 1987, he was named as one of the richest people in the world by Forbes magazine.

He spent some of his fortune developing deprived neighbourhoods, but many people consider this as a tactic to buy loyalty from some segments of the population.

Years on from his father’s death, Mr Rojas remembers him as a calm and responsible man, who loved his family. For him, the bill is a defining moment.

“It’s a milestone in the road about how we reflect on what is happening in terms of the commercialisation of images of Pablo Escobar in order to correct it,” says Mr Rojas.

Yet he does have criticisms about the proposals. He believes the bill doesn’t focus enough on education.

Mr Rojas recalls a day many years ago when he met a man wearing a green T-shirt with a silhouette of Escobar, and the words “Pablo, President”.

“It caused me such confusion that I wasn’t able to say anything to him about it,” he says.

“There needs to be more of an emphasis on how we deliver different messages to new generations, so that there isn’t a positive image of what a cartel boss is.”

Mr Rojas has actively been involved in efforts to reshape narratives around Escobar and the drug trade. Along with some other victims, he launched narcostore.co in 2019, an online shop that appears to sell Escobar-themed items.

But none of the products actually exist and when customers select an item they are shown a video testimony from a victim. Mr Rojas says the site has attracted 180 million visits from around the world.

In Colombia’s Congress, the bill faces four stages it needs to pass before it can become law. Gómez says he’s hoping it sparks reflection both inside and outside of Congress.

“In Germany you don’t sell Hitler T-shirts or swastikas. In Italy you don’t sell Mussolini stickers, and you don’t go to Chile and get a copy of Pinochet’s ID card.

“I think the most important thing the bill can do is to generate a conversation as a country – a conversation that hasn’t happened yet.”

Medellín’s mayor – who was also a presidential candidate in the 2022 elections – has publicly backed the bill, calling the merchandise “an insult to the city, the country and the victims”.

In El Poblado, an upmarket area of Medellín popular with tourists, three Americans browse a stall brimming with souvenirs. One buys a cap with Escobar’s name and face printed on the front. He says he wants a memento of “history”.

But for supporters of the bill, this isn’t about removing Escobar from history, it’s about erasing a mythical construct of him, fostering new ways to honour the victims he killed – and acknowledging the lingering pain of victims left behind.