Colombia: Spain agrees to extradite Farc 'abortions nurse'

Spain has agreed to extradite to Colombia a former Farc 
rebel accused of carrying out 300 forced abortions on 
women fighters,some of them underage.

Hector Arboleda Albeidis Buitrago, who has 
Spanish nationality, was detained in Madrid in 
December 2015.

He will face trial in Colombia for murder, attempted 
murder and abortion without consent.

Mr Arboleda Buitrago had been working as a nurse 
with no medical training, Colombian prosecutors say.

On Friday, Spanish authorities gave the green light
 to a Colombian justice minister's request and agreed
 to hand him over to a court
in Bogota.

His arrest in 2015 formed part of an investigation relating 
to 150 cases involving former Farc fighters who said  
they had been forced to terminate their pregnancies.

Known as "The Nurse", Mr Arboleda Buitrago is accused
 of taking part in most of those abortions.

Colombian authorities said the procedures were carried 
out in filthy conditions, with no medication, on women 
who were often in their final months of pregnancy.

They added that the women came from indigenous communist  and should have been protected during
 their pregnancies and should have been relieved of
 their duties as Farc officers.

Female rebels were compelled to have abortions so as
 not to undermine their fighting ability, although the
 left-wing rebels have denied this in the past, saying
 that contraception was made available.

In an interview with the AP in 2015, one female rebel
 in Bogota said that she had been forced to have 
five abortions. She said that women in the organisation
 were expected to fight, and those who were allowed 
to have babies considered themselves lucky.


Who are the Farc?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc, after 
the initials in Spanish) are Colombia's largest rebel group.

They were founded in 1964 as the armed wing of the Communist Party and follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Their main founders were small farmers and land 
workers who had banded together to fight against
 the staggering levels of inequality in Colombia at the
 time.

While the Farc have some urban groups, they have 
always been an overwhelmingly rural guerrilla organisation.

In November 2016, the Colombian government and the
 Farc rebel group announced a second peace agreement
 after an initial deal was rejected.

The conflict up to this point had lasted more than five 
decades and resulted in about 260,000 deaths, with 
millions of people displaced.