Colombians Alert On Torture And Mass Graves In Cali

Colombian human rights organizations on Sunday revealed several locations that would have been used by Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron (ESMAD) agents to detain, torture, and disappear protesters in Cali.

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The 21 N Legal and Humanitarian Team, the Justice and Dignity Corporation, and the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission denounced that Cali's Municipal Administrative Center (CAM) was used by the police as a secret operations center.

"Since May 13, the police have been detaining demonstrators in the CAM basements. They torture them, kill them, and take their bodies out in polarized vans hours later," the organizations explained in a report.

According to this document, when the vans leave the CAM, they travel to Mulalo municipality to place the dead bodies in a mass grave.

The organizations also received complaints about the existence of mass graves in rural areas of the municipalities of Buga and Yumbo. "Some survivors were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds. They are terrorized," the report says.

In the Ciudad Jardin community, a house was set up to dismember people. Witnesses fear they will be killed if they denounce ESMAD and police-backed paramilitaries.

"The government, the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and the Missing Persons Search Unit must initiate an investigation into these events immediately," the organizations urged, recalling that at least 150 people have disappeared in the city since April 28.