Christina Marie Noriega

Discos Pacífico is a record label dedicated exclusively to supporting artists from Colombia's Pacific Coast, a predominantly Black region that has historically been overlooked by the music industry. The label has signed on eight artists and groups, including Bejuco, Semblanzas del Río Guapi, and rising rap star, Verito Asprilla.

In the heart of Colombia, very special Christmas celebrations take place not in December but in February. Its roots lie in the days of slavery when many Afro-Colombians were serving their masters' festivities during that time. In an act of cultural and racial resistance that has been preserved for nearly 200 years, Christmas celebrations in Quinamayo are held 40 day...

As a kid, Ángel Barajas used to jump off fences. His mom knew he’d stick the landing.

Now he’s stuck the biggest landing in his fledgling gymnastics career. The 17-year-old made history on Monday as Colombia’s first gymnast to clinch a medal in the Olympic Games, winning second place in men’s horizontal bar. He’s also the first Colombian to medal in the Paris games.

Day after day, month after month, Consuelo Manyoma waits for news that it is safe for her family of seven to return home. Manyoma is from San Isidro, an Afro-Colombian village nestled between tropical forests and the Calima River in the country’s southwest. There, nine Black communities collectively own 67,000 hectares (165,600 acres), where families make a living by farming, fishing, and logging. But the town is also a strategic stop in the international cocaine trade.

El viernes pasado llegó el día que Consuelo Manyoma tanto había anhelado. Una fila de seis chivas llegó al Coliseo El Cristal, un polideportivo ubicado en la ciudad de Buenaventura, el principal puerto de Colombia. Más de 200 familias emprendían el camino de regreso a sus tierras, de las que habían sido desplazadas más de dos años atrás. Cientos de personas iban y venían entre el coliseo y los buses desde temprano, recogiendo colchas, maletas y cajas de cartón con las pocas pertenencias que a...

In September 2022, little over a month after he assumed office, Colombian President Gustavo Petro stood before world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly with a bold message.
“As president of one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, and one of the most bloodstained and violent, I propose that we put an end to the war on drugs and make it possible for our peop...

Cuando María Fernanda, una mujer venezolana de 27 años, decidió que quería abortar el año pasado, sabía que sus opciones eran limitadas. En su país el aborto es ilegal, excepto en el caso de que la vida de la mujer esté en peligro, y puede ser sancionado con prisión de seis meses a dos años. Una amiga que había abortado antes le recomendó hablar con una red feminista, y así María Fernanda llegó a su casa de Maracaibo con un paquete de píldoras. Era junio de 2023.

As class begins at Sanitas University, a cohort of young men gathers the supplies they'll need for the lesson: a plastic doll, rash ointment and diapers.
Felipe Contreras, 30, their teacher, guides the men through the steps. First, they name the dolls, then clean the dolls' bottoms, change the diaper, apply rash ointment and cradle the doll, remembering to hold the head gently.
At Bogotá's Care School for Men, an innovative city-led program, men learn how...

On January 20, 2023, a Colombian task force burst into a home in this city, looking for contraband. Nearly a dozen officers scattered throughout the house, searching every room, peering into cabinets and closets, and poking under beds and couches until they found what they came for in a cardboard box: a massive, yellow-spotted python that extended three metres (10 feet) long.

Bogotá—On May 9, after multiple days of widespread unrest and police violence, demonstrators in Colombia’s capital city gathered, with candles cradled in their hands, for an evening of mourning. On the cracked cement floor of a public park lay sheet after sheet of paper with the typewritten names of demonstrators killed during recent protests. One read: “Jeisson García, 13 years old, Suspect: ESMAD” — one of the youngest alleged victims of the country’s notorious riot control police.

The Petro administration plans to pour money into rural communities to stop the drug trade at its source.

Chia, Colombia – Decnis Diaz was at home in Chia, Colombia, on November 18 when she received a call from her siblings: Her beloved younger brother, Jhon Jairo Diaz, had been kidnapped.
A 34-year-old store manager, Jhon Jairo was ending his shift at a meat market in Cucuta, a border town near Venezuela, when four masked men held him at gunpoint and dragged him inside a black sedan. Security cameras captured the vehicle speeding away.
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In the slopes overlooking downtown Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, gun-toting gangs reign over vast stretches of neighbourhoods, overseeing the drug trade, demanding extortion fees and deciding who comes and goes on their turf.

Now, such gangs have declared that they are ready to give it all up.

In the city of Buenaventura, a ceasefire between two rival gangs is being held up as a model for government peace plans.