Héctor Abad Faciolince grew up in what had been one of the violent cities on earth. Since Colombia received its independence greater than 200 years in the past, it has weathered political unrest, army crackdowns and violent drug cartels.

His personal father, who had accused the army of sponsoring loss of life squads, was assassinated in 1987 by paramilitary forces that had turned his hometown, Medellín, right into a battle zone.

But his brush with loss of life got here half a world away.

At the tip of a visit final month that he and two fellow Colombians hoped may support their quixotic quest to construct help in South America for Ukraine’s battle towards Russia, a missile tore by a crowded restaurant the place they’d simply raised their glasses for a toast. At least 13 folks had been killed, together with their information, the Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina.

“I could only think: they killed us,” Mr. Abad mentioned. “That was the last thing I could think of.”

Nearly a yr and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine, a lot of South America has largely prevented selecting sides within the battle. Longstanding views {that a} multipolar, less-Western international order is of their greatest pursuits have prompted governments to oppose the preventing however reject makes an attempt to isolate Russia diplomatically, impose financial sanctions or supply weapons to Ukraine.

And many common residents, polls counsel, view the battle as one thing too distant to care about, a proxy battle between international powers doing what they’ve at all times carried out: impose their wills on smaller international locations.

Opposition to such widespread apathy put Mr. Abad and two fellow Colombians — Catalina Gómez Ángel, a journalist, and Sergio Jaramillo, a former protection minister who led the federal government’s peace settlement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — unwittingly within the line of fireside.

They had attended a literary convention in Kyiv, the place they spoke a couple of marketing campaign created by Mr. Jaramillo, “¡Aguanta Ucrania!” (“Hang On Ukraine!”), that has collected supportive movies from Latin American politicians, intellectuals and artists, together with the Chilean writer Isabel Allende and the Uruguayan songwriter Jorge Drexler. So far, it has attracted a modest following: simply over 4,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram mixed.

But after the convention, Mr. Jaramillo mentioned, the trio needed to “take the campaign to the places where Ukrainians suffer most.” Ms. Amelina volunteered to information them by villages within the battle-scarred Donbas area to doc tales of Ukrainian troopers and households who had been victims of battle crimes.

They hoped to inform these tales again residence and promote solidarity with Ukraine, the place Mr. Abad mentioned the struggle for sovereignty echoes the struggles of South American nations.

“When one defends certain freedoms of the West and Ukraine, one is also defending those of Colombia,” Mr. Abad mentioned.

They had completed their tour on a heat Tuesday final month in Kramatorsk, about 20 miles from the entrance line and the devastated metropolis of Bakhmut. Ria Lounge, certainly one of Ms. Amelina’s favourite eating places, was vigorous and crowded although native officers had prohibited the sale of alcohol within the metropolis, in hopes of maintaining folks off the streets. Instead, the companions toasted with nonalcoholic beer and apple juice.

“Victoria looked at my glass and joked: ‘Looks like whisky,’” Mr. Abad mentioned. “She smiled, and I smiled. At that moment, there were no sirens. There was no whistle, nothing. Just something like an explosion that I had never felt in my life.”

Mr. Abad, Ms. Gómez and Mr. Jaramillo sustained minor accidents. But Ms. Amelina, certainly one of Ukraine’s best-known younger writers, died in a hospital 4 days later. She was 37.

The assault prompted President Gustavo Petro of Colombia to publicly condemn Russia for the primary time for the reason that invasion, and he known as on his nation’s international ministry to “deliver a diplomatic note of protest.”

But three weeks later in Brussels, at a summit of European leaders and their Caribbean and Latin American counterparts, Mr. Petro chose to sit on the fence when it got here to discussing the battle.

He chastised the West with frequent chorus in South America. “No doubt there’s an imperialist invasion of Ukraine. But what would you call what happened in Iraq? Or in Libya? Or in Syria?” he mentioned. “Why does this one cause this reaction and previous ones in this century do not?”

President Gabriel Boric of Chile, one of many few South American leaders to sentence Moscow, urged his counterparts to be extra assertive. “Today it is Ukraine, but tomorrow it could be any one of us,” he mentioned through the summit.

But the summit stalled because the international locations couldn’t agree on the best way to deal with the battle. In their joint assertion, they didn’t point out Russia in any respect, restricting their communiqué to expressing “deep concern on the ongoing war against Ukraine.”

Many South American leaders have extra urgent priorities, like financial stagnation and hovering inflation, and worry the potential financial fallout of taking sides. Brazil’s very important agribusiness, for instance, is extremely depending on Russian fertilizers.

Public curiosity has additionally waned. A recent Ipsos poll confirmed that spotlight paid to the battle has receded considerably in main Latin American international locations, together with Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, in comparison with many different elements of the world. A majority of individuals polled within the area imagine that Ukraine’s issues are none of their enterprise and the survey discovered little help for any sort of intervention.

There can be continued distrust of the United States, which has a protracted historical past of backing regime adjustments within the area, together with army dictatorships. It’s a deeply-embedded reminiscence that shouldn’t be taken flippantly, mentioned Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, a professor of worldwide relations and the provost of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires.

Latin America’s high considerations, he mentioned, are inequality, poverty and pandemic restoration — and avoiding a return to the times when the continent was caught between competing superpowers.

“Latin America lost development opportunities and experienced the dramatic costs of the Cold War,” he mentioned. “If a similar division happens now, historical memory will count. And, for Latin America, going back to a Cold War is unacceptable.”

But that’s precisely why supporters of Ukraine say it’s essential for Latin America to take an curiosity in Ukraine.

Sergio Guzmán, the director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a political consultancy mentioned the battle may reshape the worldwide energy map, and the area dangers being neglected by making an attempt to take a center path.

“If Latin America wants to have a seat at the table, it needs to get involved,” he mentioned.

While South American leaders had been in Brussels, ¡Aguanta Ucrania! posters had gone up across the metropolis. About two weeks after the missile strike on Kramatorsk, Mr. Abad, Ms. Gómez and Mr. Jaramillo visited town to advertise their initiative and attend a tribute to Ms. Amelina on the European Parliament.

Back residence in Medellín, Mr. Abad mentioned he’d begun studying the Spanish version of Ms. Amelina’s 2017 novel “Dom’s Dream Kingdom.”

“It’s very entertaining, and you learn a lot of Ukrainian history,” Mr. Abad mentioned. “It’s the story of a family in Lviv, and you learn how complex the Ukrainian identity is, as many spoke Russian and were part of the Soviet Union.”

He mentioned he hoped that Ms. Amelina’s 10-year-old son would come of age in a free and impartial Ukraine.

“That’s what they are fighting for,” he mentioned. “I hope that they will not lose this war. Because if Ukraine loses, we all lose.”