Colombia gives victims of conflict part of drug lord Pablo Escobar's ranch

(Patria) - Colombia has handed over part of the ranch of the late drug lord Pablo Escobar, known for his "cocaine" hippos, to women affected by the country's armed conflict, President Gustavo Petro said, AFP reported.

Escobar, once the head of the powerful Medellin cartel, was one of the richest men on the planet in the late 1980s, with Forbes magazine estimating his wealth at $25 billion.

His opulent 4,000-hectare Hacienda Napoles estate in the northwestern department of Antioquia, which he filled with exotic animals, including hippos, became a symbol of his power and wealth.

After he was killed by police in 1993, the state took over the estate and leased it to local authorities, who turned it into a successful theme park, with a hotel and a zoo.

Petro said part of the estate has now been handed over to victims of Colombia's armed conflict, which has lasted more than six decades between leftist guerrillas, drug cartels, right-wing paramilitaries, and the state. "We have begun to return the Napoles estate to the victims," Petro wrote on social media X.
The government announced that 120 hectares (297 acres) of land have been given to local women farmers.

The women were granted the land on loan by the local municipality of Puerto Triunfo in 2017, but according to the national government, they were later evicted by the police.
Land ownership has been a key driver of conflict in Colombia.
In May, Petro requested that Escobar's estate be included in the land reform program, under which thousands of hectares of land, including some properties previously owned by drug traffickers, will be given to rural Colombians.

Tourism companies operating in Hacienda Napoles protested against the plan to divide the estate, pointing to its role in attracting tourists to the region.

Hacienda Napoles is known for the replica of a plane placed above the entrance gate – a symbol, later removed, of planes full of drugs he smuggled into the United States, as well as for its hippo population.
Escobar brought a small number of African animals to Colombia in the late 1980s. After his death, the animals were left to roam freely outside the estate's boundaries and to reproduce.

There are now about 150 of them. Colombia has declared them an invasive species and planned to relocate seventy of them to overseas sanctuaries.