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News > Colombia

Colombia: Another Indigenous Leader Killed in Putumayo

  • Citizens in the March for Dignity, Bogota, Colombia, July 10, 2020.

    Citizens in the March for Dignity, Bogota, Colombia, July 10, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 15 July 2020
Opinion

Over 200 social leaders have been killed in this South American country in the first half of 2020.

The Indigenous leader Wilson Eduardo Baicue was killed in the Puerto Caicedo municipality, in the Putumayo department, by armed men who inflicted four fatal shots on him.

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Colombia: Another Two Former Combatants Killed, Tally at 218

Colombia's authorities began the investigation of the murder to determine the reasons and authors of the crime. Residents of the place, however, claim that the attackers carried short-range firearms and wore civilian clothing.

Witnesses also said that the assassins, who arrived in a boat at the crime scene, violently took Baicue out of his home and then killed him. Later, residents of the area found his body about five minutes from his home.

The Nasa People leader was a member of the El Libano community and a member of the La Esperanza community board, in which he was in charge of different campaigns and social activities aimed especially at the youth population.

The Justice and Peace collective denounced that the homicide occurred in a territory that has been the subject of disputes among several paramilitary groups over the last months.

Despite the 2016 peace agreement signing between the state and the then Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia has been experiencing a wave of violence mainly because of the fight between criminal gangs and paramilitary groups, which seek to seize territories formerly controlled by guerrilla forces.

The main victims in this endless conflict have been social leaders and former guerrillas. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), at least 150 activists have been killed in 2020 so far, while the FARC has recorded at least 218 former combatants killed since 2016.

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