Children walk in Las Mercedes, rural area of Quibdo, Colombia, on November 18, 2014. (Agence France- Presse photo)
Police say they have caught Colombia's youngest drug mule after an 11-year-old girl underwent surgery to have more than 100 capsules removed from her stomach.
The unnamed child is in hospital under guard in Cali, western Colombia, after the failed attempt to smuggle the drugs - hidden in the capsules - to Europe.
"She is out of surgery after 104 capsules were removed, which at the moment are being tested to determine what illegal drug it was," Cali police commander Hoover Penilla said on Tuesday.
The girl was being used as a mule to move 500-600 grams (about half a kilo) of drugs to Europe, said the policeman, calling her the youngest mule Colombian police have caught.
"All signs suggest that... she was being used in this twisted way by adults," he added.
The girl's parents are separated. Her mother says that the girl was with her father for a weekend and came back to her mother's home feeling queasy at night, and when she still felt unwell in the morning was taken to the hospital, Penilla said.
Authorities were hunting for the father, he added.
Colombia is one of the world's top exporters of cocaine, along with Peru, UN data show.