Colombia’s Search for Armero’s ‘Lost Children’ Exposes Decades of Institutional Failure

Forty years after the Nevado del Ruiz volcano triggered one of Latin America’s deadliest natural disasters, Colombia is still confronting a painful, unresolved chapter: the hundreds of children who disappeared amid the chaos and were never traced. For families, the Armero tragedy remains an open wound. For the country’s institutions, it is a reminder of the long-term consequences when public systems fail at their most basic responsibilities.

The 1985 eruption sent a massive wave of mud and debris through the town of Armero, killing roughly 25,000 people — nearly 70% of its population. Among the survivors was Maria Gladys Primo, who lost her home, her husband and her two children in the disaster. Trapped for two days before being rescued, she never believed her son and daughter had died. Four decades later, she remains convinced they were among the children pulled from the rubble and later adopted abroad.

Her belief is not unfounded. In the months following the disaster, rescue workers, hospitals and aid groups operated in extreme conditions, improvising care for injured and orphaned children. Amid the confusion, hundreds of children were separated from their families and placed in temporary shelters. Others were transferred to adoption agencies handling an overwhelming surge of cases.

The Creating Armero Foundation, which has spent years collecting data, estimates that 583 children were reported missing after the eruption. Of those, around 150 were rescued alive. Many were sent overseas through what the foundation describes as irregular or poorly documented adoption processes, particularly to northern Europe and North America. The organization has collected DNA from 71 adoptees so far, but progress in matching them with surviving relatives has been painstakingly slow.

At the heart of the problem is Colombia’s fragmented and inconsistent record-keeping. Institutions such as the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) were responsible for tracking rescued children, but for years families accused the agency of withholding information or failing to preserve key documents. Those gaps have complicated every subsequent effort to trace the missing children.

Only four confirmed reunions have taken place in forty years. For families who have spent decades searching, that number reflects institutional negligence rather than the passage of time.

The situation reveals deeper governance challenges. Colombia’s social services infrastructure in the mid-1980s was unprepared for a crisis of Armero’s scale. Documentation standards differed by region and agency. Emergency protocols for identifying children were inconsistent. International adoption oversight operated under far looser regulations than exist today. As reconstruction efforts shifted national attention, the complex task of tracking displaced children fell through the cracks.

That failure has had long-lasting social consequences. Thousands of adoptees grew up abroad with little or no information about their origins. Many learned as adults that they may have been separated from living parents. Meanwhile, surviving relatives like Primo — now in their 60s and 70s — continue to submit DNA samples, hoping to match before time runs out.

Today, Colombia is attempting to correct those historical failures. The ICBF announced last month that it has begun restoring and digitizing all existing records related to children rescued after the eruption. The initiative aims to merge paper archives, hospital files, and international adoption documents into a unified system that families and investigators can access. The project is early in its implementation, and many records remain incomplete or fragile, but advocates call it the most promising effort in decades.

For the government, the renewed focus represents more than a humanitarian gesture. It reflects a broader effort to rebuild trust in public institutions that historically underperformed in crisis management. Colombia’s ability to address past errors — and to provide closure to families — will shape its reputation for transparency and responsibility in future national emergencies.

For survivors, the effort carries a deeper emotional weight. Primo recalls recognizing her son in a television archive years after the disaster — a boy covered in mud, rescued alive. That moment has fueled her search for decades. “My heart tells me they are alive,” she said. “I will keep waiting until the day I die.”

Forty years later, the Armero tragedy remains a symbol of loss — but also of the need for stronger, more accountable institutions capable of protecting vulnerable citizens under the most extreme circumstances. For many families, justice is not measured in courts or official reports, but in answers.