Since April 15, 2025, more than 4,000 prisoners of the La Modelo prison in Cúcuta have gone on hunger strike, protesting the poor food service they receive. Prisoners have shared videos showing rations consisting of a glass of rice, half a sausage and a glass of lemonade, which has generated outrage, both in the prisoners and their families, in human rights groups, as well as in those who know that prisons are overcrowded with innocent and revolutionary people.
The relatives have made complaints that this situation represents a violation of the constitutional rights to life, health and dignity of the prisoners, a problem that has persisted for many years. In addition, corruption has been denounced within the penitentiary, where prisoners must pay exorbitant prices for wanting to bring in decent food for their own consumption. Those who can’t afford to pay suffer even more, with reports of spoiled food and sometimes maggots.
Although this situation met with an organized response from the prisoners of the La Modelo prison in Cúcuta, the truth is that in the rest of the 132 dungeons in the state, distributed in 28 of the 32 departments of the country, they also suffer from the terrible conditions of the judicial and penitentiary system, exacerbated by the problem of overcrowding. There are approximately 150 thousand prisoners crammed into an infrastructure with capacity for only 82,232 according to the reports of the Agency of Investigative Journalism, statistics that allow us to understand why decent food, health care, infrastructure, cultural and recreational activities, etc., are not guaranteed in prisons, denounced by the National Prison Movement.
This serious prison crisis is the reflection of a Colombian state, completely disinterested in building a more dignified country where problems such as hunger, poor education, lack of health, unemployment, labor exploitation, repression, etc., which have led to the degradation of Colombian society and consequently to nourish these prisons, are solved at the root. The prisons are also filled not only with bandits who are no longer functional to their project of death, but also with innocents and people who have not received a sentence, as well as thousands of fighters and rebels who are kidnapped by the state for wanting to transform this country.
By: Antony Beltrán and Orlando Cienfuegos, correspondents of Antorcha Estéreo.
Source: https://insurgenciaurbana-eln.net/huelga-de-hambre-en-la-carcel-la-modelo-de-cucuta/