Colombia: four indigenous youths murdered by FARC dissidents

Four indigenous youths were murdered by a dissidence from the FARC in the south of Colombiadenounced this Saturday the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC).

READ MORE | Former paramilitary chief in Colombia acknowledges that he had an order to assassinate Petro

OPIAC said that the murdered youths, forcibly recruited in the department of Putumayo, on the border with Ecuador, escaped but were later found and murdered, and their bodies found in the El Estrecho hamlet, on the border of the departments of Caquetá and Amazonas.

“After the escape, on May 17, 2023 in the afternoon, and after the search by the organized armed group for these young people, they were found in the El Estrecho community,” OPIAC said in a statement.

According to this indigenous organization, “the four young people who had tried to escape from the recruitment situation” were murdered “with a firearm”

In this regard, the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, said today on Twitter that officials from the Criminal Investigation Directorate of the Police (Dijin) and the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) traveled to Putumayo to attend a security council .

LOOK HERE | Colombian government and Medellín gangs will begin peace talks

“The murder of minors is more than intolerable and those responsible must answer to justice,” added Velasco.

forcibly recruited

Information from the indigenous organization detailed that on March 26, members of the Carolina Ramírez Front, a FARC dissidence, carried out a “forced recruitment” of the young Luis Alberto Matías Capera, from the Samaritana community of the Alto Predio Putumayo reservation.

The statement added that based on information they have, on May 15 Capera “decided to escape from this armed group that had forcibly recruited him. He made this escape together with three other young people who were in the same situation”, and who are also part of the Murui people.

They demand to stop the violence

The OPIAC recalled that indigenous peoples have been among those most affected by the Colombian armed conflict with homicides, displacements, rapes, disappearances and forced recruitment, among others.

MORE INFORMATION | What is known about the Central Staff, the largest FARC dissidence that agreed to negotiate peace with Petro

“Given this situation, we demand that the illegal armed groups respect the right to life and personal integrity of our indigenous comrades,” they said.

They also asked the authorities to provide security, guaranteeing children and adolescents “dignified conditions for a good life and an end to the violence of the various illegal armed groups,” whom they said “murder, displace, confine, and forcibly recruit.”

In addition, they asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the facts and take the pertinent measures to prosecute those responsible.

The National Center for Historical Memory (CNMH) has records that between 1958 and 2019 5,011 have been murdered natives in the context of the armed conflict

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.