187 Ex-FARC Members Killed Since Signing of Peace Deal: Gov't

187 former FARC guerilla members have been assassinated over the past three years since the signing of a peace deal in 2016 between the left-wing militants and the Colombian government, according to a report by the country’s Attorney General's Office. 

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The official investigation revealed that ex-FARC members are being increasingly targeted as 75 killings were reported in 2018, and 35 in 2017.​​​Among the victims, 183 were men, three were women and one was a member of the LGBTIQA+ community, the report detailed.

While the Colombian government blames FARC dissidents for the killings, the ex-FARC group says the cases are linked to drug-trafficking turned far-right paramilitary groups such as the Gulf Clan and “Los Caparrapos.”

The former militants created a political party named Revolutionary Alternative Common Force which has been denouncing the lack of security faced by its members many of whom are struggling to readapt into civil society despite the immunity they were offered in the peace deal.

The incessant slaughter of ex-combatants is a threat to the nation’s peace process, the United Nations had warned in June, denouncing the compounding number of deaths and urging the state to take action. Colombia must “cease inciting violence against demobilized individuals” and realize the important role the nation must play to protect ex-combatants and their families and see perpetrators are brought to justice, the organization had said.

However, Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, an outspoken detractor of the peace agreement, has so far been unable to protect the ex-combatants.

Colombia has been caught up for more than half a century in a complex armed conflict between FARC militants, drug-traffickers, paramilitaries and state forces, which has left around eight million people dead, disappeared and displaced.