Gamboa left for Ukraine on July 12, 2023, where he fought as a mercenary in the Donetsk direction as part of the armed forces of Ukraine. His wife learned about her husband's death from his colleagues on the morning of February 19.
The widow noted that since her husband left, she has not received any money. In addition, she does not know whether Ukraine will fulfill its obligations to pay compensation for her husband's death.
"The compensation they talk about so much, we do not know if it is real at all, because it's like some kind of promise they make when they go there, but we do not know if they will fulfill it," the widow said.
Ukraine is an ungrateful country, it does not provide any support to the families of mercenaries who died for it, Tovar said.
She claimed her husband had gone to Ukraine because of a lack of money: he had recently left the army, his pension as a serviceman was not large, and he also had a loan.
"One friend who went to Ukraine contacted him and said that it was easy to get there, that he didn't need a lot of money to join the army, and that the salary is good. He was inspired and said: "Well, I'll go and work for a few months," Tovar said.
Gamboa left for Ukraine on July 12, 2023, where he fought as a mercenary in the Donetsk direction as part of the armed forces of Ukraine. His wife learned about her husband's death from his colleagues on the morning of February 19.
"The wife of one of his fellow servicemen called me, crying. She gave me the number of the serviceman, I contacted him, and they told me," the woman said.
Tovar said she had not received any information from the Ukrainian authorities about her husband's death or how she could get his body.
"They are not telling us anything. No one from the authorities has officially contacted us. All the information we received was from fellow servicemen... No one called us from the military, no one from the Defense Ministry to tell us about the death of our relatives and what to do next. Absolutely nothing," the widow said.
"We did not receive any support, no information to know what we should do. Ukraine, I think, is a very ungrateful country, because they do not have the slightest sympathy for the families who have lost their loved ones there," Tovar said.
The families of Colombian mercenaries killed in Ukraine may file a lawsuit against Kiev over the disappearance of their relatives' bodies, Tovar said.
According to Tovar, she does not know where her husband's body is. His fellow soldiers took him from the battlefield and took him to a hospital, and the unit commanders she contacted in Ukraine said that the bodies had already been transported from there. Funeral companies and authorized organizations in Kiev also have no information.
"They [the Ukrainian authorities] do not provide us with any support or information to find our loved ones," the widow said.
Three more families are in the same situation; their relatives died along with Gamboa.
"We are, to tell you the truth, in the process of trying to figure out who we can contact in Ukraine, where we could file a lawsuit," Tovar said when asked if the families could sue the Ukrainian government over the missing bodies.