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Remains of six people killed in a massacre by Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces in the late 1990’s have been found in western department of Choco, Colombian authorities announced on Monday.
The victims were killed between 1997 and 1998 by the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba known as ACCU, an element of the now-defunct far-right paramilitary group United Self Defence Forces of Colombia or AUC.
According to officials, investigators uncovered the bodies in a jungle area between the municipalities of Riosucio and Carmen del Darien in the department of Choco. The remains are thought to belong to victims of a massacre Pavarando, a village own on the border with the neighboring department of Antioquia.
The bodies were found in the jungle between Riosucio and Carmen del Darien in the department of Choco. I Source: Google Maps
Investigators preliminarily identified the bodies, but the remains have been taken to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences for a complete examination and identification.
Choco is a mostly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous region. Riosucio, near where the bodies were discovered, has suffered a harsh history, including a 1996 massacre at the hands of right-wing paramilitary forces in response to organizing that resulted in community members being labeled as leftist insurgents to be silenced. Hundreds were killed in the massacre and thousands of survivors were forced from their land.
The ACCU, founded in the name of fighting against left-wing guerillas including the FARC and ELN, disbanded in 2006, though Colombia’s powerful drug cartels are considered successors to the ACCU’s larger paramilitary structure the AUC.
After three years of searching, Colombian forensic scientists have found over 28,000 unidentified bodies buried across the country in an ongoing search for the disappeared victims of the country’s five decade internal armed conflict.
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