Ceasefires play a crucial role in efforts to build and sustain peace. Despite the importance of ceasefires, they have received little scholarly attention. We examine the occurrence and effect of ceasefires in the armed conflict in Colombia. Our findings indicate that ceasefires played a facilitating role in reducing the number of fatalities in the conflict between FARC and the government during the most recent peace process. We do not find the same trend for earlier peace processes. As for the most recent peace efforts with ELN, at present, there is no available data on the number of fatalities.
