A landmark report on Colombia’s more than 50-year internal conflict has found that nearly a quarter of a million people have been killed, most of them civilians. The report tackles the military conflict between Colombia’s armed forces and leftist guerrillas dating back to 1958, as well as the right-wing paramilitaries that have emerged since the mid-1980s. Gonzalo Sánchez, head of the Colombian investigative team, unveiled the findings.

Gonzalo Sánchez: “The total of violent deaths in the country between 1958 and 2012 is at least 220,000 caused by the armed conflict. Eighty percent of these have been unarmed civilians. It’s a war that has left most of the country mourning, but very unevenly. It’s a war whose victims are in the vast majority noncombatant civilians. It’s a depraved war that has broken all humanitarian rules beyond social and political objectives that multiple gangs could brandish.”

According to the report, Colombia’s bloodiest period came between 1985 and 2002, when wealthy elites formed paramilitaries to battle rebels and attack civilians. The main paramilitary group, the AUC, was responsible for the bulk of nearly 2,000 massacres since 1980 as well as the worst atrocities. The leftist guerrilla group FARC was responsible for the most kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure. An estimated 4.7 million people have been displaced since 1996, and around 1,200 indigenous people have been killed over the same period. The paramilitaries have long worked closely with successive right-wing Colombian governments, who in turn have received billions in U.S. aid. The report was commissioned in 2011 as part of ongoing peace talks with the rebel group, FARC.