Alarm in Colombia for the execution of a child and a young man after being accused of robbery

The UN and the authorities of Colombia They are investigating the murder of two Venezuelan adolescents, 12 and 18 years old, who were shot after being accused of robbing a warehouse in a violent coca-growing region in the northeast of the country, according to various sources disclosed this Monday.

In videos and photos posted on social media, teenagers are seen looking distressed, their hands tied forward with duct tape while an off-camera person accuses them of “thieves.”

“Unfortunately they are very young boys, we do not want to see them tomorrow lying on some side of the roads”, says the anonymous voice.

The bodies of the teens were later found in a rural area, apparently shot and with their hands still tied.

A cardboard with the word “thieves” written by hand rested on the body of the youngest, lying face down with a red backpack.

Jaime Marthey, ombudsman from the Norte de Santander department where the killings occurred, said that the young people were caught stealing clothes in Tibú, a town on the border with Venezuela.

The merchants tied them up, but then “they were taken away (…) by an illegal armed group that took them to an unknown destination where they later turned up dead,” Marthey added in an interview with Blu Radio.

According to the defender, the youths were migrants who fled the economic crisis in Venezuela.

The police colonel, Carlos Martínez, blamed the dissidents of the ex-guerrilla of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) that departed from the peace agreement signed in 2016 and assured that investigations are being carried out to clarify the crime.

The UN Office for Human Rights in Colombia rejected the murder of the 12-year-old minor and asked the authorities to “investigate these facts.”

The troubled municipality of Tibú It concentrates the largest amount of drug crops in Colombia with more than 19,000 hectares planted with coca leaves, according to the UN.

Dissidents from the former FARC guerrilla, rebels from the National Liberation Army (ELN) and drug traffickers of paramilitary origin are fighting for territory with blood and fire to control the coca business.

Non-governmental organizations such as the international Human Rights Watch have denounced that thousands of Venezuelan migrants arrive in the region due to the precarious control of border crossings and end up trapped in the Colombian armed conflict.

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