Whenever a low, bumblebee-like thrum cuts through the quiet of Sandra Montoya’s home near Tibu in Colombia’s Catatumbo region, the sound stiffens her body. She instinctively reaches for her young son.

The noise always emerges from a small mountain behind her home, part of a tree-quilted landscape stitched with winding rivers along Colombia’s border with Venezuela.

"I always hear them before I see them, if I see them at all," she says. "Usually, black dots appear in the distance, sometimes coming towards us."

Drones — some laden with explosives — regularly trace across the skies above Catatumbo, a region long marked by clashes between rival armed groups and the state.

The menacing mechanical whir sends her young son running to the toilet to hide. It's the only solid, concrete space in their small home of wooden planks.

"The drones can destroy anything here," says Montoya, who used a pseudonym due to security fears. "But I had to tell him something. How is it possible for a five-year-old to live with that kind of fear?"

The use of drones — or uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) — has risen sharply in the last year as Colombia continues to contend with a decades-long internal conflict.

The country’s Ministry of Defence reported 8,395 weaponised drone attacks in 2025, 333 of which were "effective" in striking their target.

This marks a 445 percent increase over 2024, when 61 effective incidents were recorded.

What is happening in Colombia reflects a broad trend in conflict zones across the world, with experts warning that drone warfare could pose new, heightened threats for civilians.

In Tibu, for instance, a 12-year-old boy and his mother were killed in May 2025 when an explosive fell onto their home during fighting between armed groups.

While Catatumbo, along the Venezuelan border, has been a hub for drone-related violence, it is not the only affected region in Colombia. Attacks have been reported in multiple areas.

Last month, three soldiers were killed following a drone attack by an armed group in Narino, in the southwest of the country.

Overall, according to the Defence Ministry, 20 people were killed by drones in 2025 and 297 were injured.

‘The new non-conventional weapon’

The spread of drones has been driven by cheap, widely available commercial technology adapted for combat.

"They are the new non-conventional weapon — like cylinder bombs once were," said Laura Bonilla, the deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (PARES), a research nonprofit.

"They increase groups’ capacity to cause harm at lower cost. They allow more attacks with less intelligence and money."

Experts also believe the fragmentation of Colombia's armed groups have prompted fighters to turn to drones. Such technology allows groups to keep costs low and engage in combat without risking their members.

Several groups are now using drones, including the National Liberation Army (ELN), Clan del Golfo and dissident factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refused to demobilise after a 2016 peace agreement.

That deal brought an end to six decades of conflict between the FARC and the Colombian state. Yet not all fighters laid down their arms.

Some rejected the agreement and formed offshoot groups, while new armed groups also expanded into areas vacated by the FARC.

Now, a patchwork of actors competes for control of illicit economies and territories across regions such as Catatumbo, Cauca, Narino and Putamayo.

Drones are helping them do this.

Attacks and surveillance

According to analysts, armed groups are using the aerial devices primarily for two purposes: attacks and surveillance.

"They target certain infrastructure, attack police and attack the army," Bonilla said. "But another very common use is territorial control through surveillance flights."

She points to the use of drones to survey farmland seeded with coca, the key ingredient for cocaine and a key source of revenue for armed groups.

There, drones are used to monitor crops and laboratories, replacing oversight conducted on foot or by motorbike.

Colombia's armed groups have sourced their drones through a mix of online purchases — including on consumer platforms such as Amazon and Temu — as well as through urban intermediaries and cross-border smuggling. Those devices are then modified for combat.

"Now they are buying commercial-type drones, like the Chinese DJI models, but not basic consumer ones, which only have a range of about three or four kilometres [1.8 to 2.5 miles]," said Camilo Mendoza, a defence analyst and author of the book Colombia Under Drone Threat.

"These are larger industrial drones used for inspections, with longer range, higher ceilings and the ability to carry heavier loads."

Mendoza estimates that most can lift an average of 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds), but some can carry cargo weighing 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) or more.

Some are used to haul improvised explosive devices (IEDs), made from plastic tubes filled with industrial explosives and shrapnel.

Those explosives are then released via remote activation.

"They have learned through trial and error," Mendoza said. "There are even videos they have uploaded to their social media on TikTok and other networks where they do weight and balance tests. So they load a pound of rice, lift the drone and say: ‘No, this doesn’t work. Take it off. Add something.’ That’s how they have learned."

The models themselves are increasingly sophisticated. Some groups are even employing first-person view (FPV) drones, flown with goggles that give pilots an immersive direct view from the drone.

The use of drones in Colombia's armed conflict does not mean that armed groups have abandoned more traditional devices, like improvised explosive devices, grenades and landmines.

But drones have tactical advantages for the groups, which are often spread across rural terrain. They are also easier to operate.

"A pilot of a conventional aircraft takes about one or two years in their training phase, depending on the aircraft and on the missions," Mendoza said. "Learning to fly a drone — it takes a week."

He added that learning to build and operate drones for conflict has become a global enterprise.

Colombia's armed groups have reportedly learned from the war in Ukraine, which Mendoza describes as a "laboratory of modern warfare".

According to his sources, some Colombians — mainly linked to the FARC dissidents — have travelled to Ukraine posing as former soldiers or police officers, to pick up cutting-edge drone techniques.

Indiscriminate attacks

Despite the increasing sophistication of the drones, the armed groups' control over these systems remains imperfect.

"If you launch a drone with modified grenades, explosives or mortar bombs, you don’t ultimately know how many will reach the target. Armed groups can’t fully control that," said Lina Mejia, a coordinator at the human rights nonprofit Vivamos Humanos.

"No matter how much technology is used, these devices are still modified in an artisanal way. That is the danger of indiscriminate use of this type of device."

The first recorded drone-related death in Colombia appears to have been one such inadvertent death.

In July 2024, 10-year-old Dylan Camilo Erazo Yela was playing football in El Plateado, Cauca, when a drone belonging to a FARC dissident group dropped a "tatuco" — a homemade explosive device — that detonated and killed him.

The increasing presence of drones has also heightened the internal displacement crisis in Colombia, already one of the world's largest.

Residents have fled their homes for fear of violence, a threat heightened by the growing drone use.

In 2025, for instance, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that 235,619 people were displaced.

The start of that year saw an escalation in Catatumbo between the ELN and a FARC dissident group called Frente 33.

The fighting left more than 80 people dead and displaced at least 100,000 people — more than half the territory’s population. Many residents recounted the systemic use of drones.

"We are now seeing a degradation of the conflict," said Mejia, whose group led a humanitarian caravan to the area.

"We see drones that previously avoided populated areas now flying without control over villages, community roads, schools and civilian infrastructure."

There are also consequences for those who choose to stay in their homes. According to Vivamos Humanos, drones frequently circle homes and crops, creating a constant sense of fear that disrupts and restricts daily life.

Residents in affected areas avoid going outside to work, shop or even fetch water, for fear of attack.

Some locals in Catatumbo told the group about unexploded devices dropped from drones, left on roads or near homes. In some cases, children have been found playing with them. In others, they later detonated due to extreme heat.

They have also identified surveillance drones monitoring social leaders and community members.

Plans for an ‘anti-drone shield’

Colombia’s armed forces have been trying to respond to the dramatic rise of drones, in part by embracing the same technology.

In October 2025, they launched Latin America’s first Unmanned Aircraft Battalion (BANOT), dedicated to conducting drone operations on behalf of the government.

They have also deployed anti-drone systems designed to disrupt unmanned aircraft operated by armed groups and criminal networks.

In January 2026, the Colombian government announced a $1.68bn project to develop an anti-drone shield.

These systems largely rely on "soft kill" technologies, including radio frequency jamming to block the connection between drone and operator, according to Mendoza, the defence analyst.

But analysts say the pace of implementation is not keeping up with the speed of innovation.

Mendoza stressed that armed groups are working around these systems.

"Some of these technologies are ineffective against drones that can switch frequencies," he said. "And fibre-optic drones — those ones cannot even be detected or jammed. There’s no way to stop them."

The result, Mendoza explained, is that drones give armed groups the upper hand. "They have disrupted the tactical balance and now have the advantage over the security forces."

With Colombia's presidential elections approaching at the end of May, he hopes candidates will address the growing threat, though so far, drones remain largely absent from the political agenda.

Back in the mountains of Tibu, Montoya and her son have become adept at deciphering which drones are for surveillance and which are carrying explosives.

They watch the devices wobbling in the sky, tipping from side to side between the dense green hills and the clear blue sky overhead. The constant buzzing can be heard day and night.

"You hear them when suddenly they’re above the house where you are sleeping," she said. "You have to hug your children because you’re afraid that one of those bombs will go off, that it will hurt your child."

One day, when a drone exploded nearby, it shook the house, spraying clumps of earth across the exterior walls.

Montoya was terrified. Yet, the absence of the drones has become unsettling, too.

"A day when you don’t hear a drone or don’t hear a bomb, you also get scared," Montoya said. "Because usually it happens every day, so you think: Is something even worse going to happen?"

For civilians like Montoya, protection from the drones cannot come fast enough.

"Wherever a drone goes, I know it might wipe everything out," she says. "But I just pray. I pray, because there is nothing else I can do."