YUNGAS, Bolivia (AP) — Cielo Torres had always lived in Bolivia. Yet before moving at age 17 to the remote town of Tocaña — where much of the country’s Afro-descendant community lives — she had rarely ...

Bolivia may be better known for its llamas, snow-capped Andean peaks and indigenous populist President than as a seat of African royalty. Yet Bolivia is home to the only known African monarch in the ...

Among the coca-growing peasants of Bolivia’s Yungas region (the country’s prime legal cultivation zone) is a substantial Afro-Bolivian population—descendants of slaves who were brought in by the ...

A sign that reads in Spanish: “Welcome to Mururata, cradle of Afro-Bolivian culture” stands in Mururata, Bolivia, on Aug. 3, 2025. (Credit: Juan Karita/AP.) Listen YUNGAS, Bolivia — Cielo Torres had ...

Afro-Bolivians, though recognized in their country's 2009 constitution, remain among Bolivia’s most invisible groups. Descendants of Africans enslaved in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were taken ...