The main vehicle in the motorcade of Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez was hit by a bullet on Wednesday near the municipality of Timba (Cauca). The bullet, apparently from a rifle, entered the vehicle after hitting the roof, just above the panoramic window, and did not cause injuries to any of its occupants. The incident occurred when Márquez was in Cali, where she had traveled by helicopter from the Cauca municipality of Suárez, to attend to another commitment on her agenda.
The vice president was in Suárez visiting what will be the headquarters of the Universidad del Valle in northern Cauca in the company of the outgoing Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara, according to a statement issued by the Vice Presidency. “I cannot help but express my enormous concern for Cauca and for the permanent tension that my people are experiencing every day throughout the region,” said Márquez after the event.
Wednesday’s attack is the second time the vice president or her family has suffered an attack in less than a month. On June 16, the car in which Márquez’s father and a six-year-old nephew were traveling was attacked with gunfire on the highway from Suárez to Cali. Both they and the two bodyguards they were traveling with escaped unharmed. At the time, the Presidency said: “It is unacceptable that armed groups operating in the area continue to use disproportionate violence and terror as tools of war.”
The public order situation in Cauca, where Márquez comes from – who throughout her life as a social leader, long before entering politics, has been the target of several threats – is one of the most delicate in the country. The clashes between the Armed Forces and dissident groups of the extinct FARC guerrilla group, responsible for several attacks in recent months, have prevented the total peace policy promoted by President Gustavo Petro from working. The recurrent attacks against the indigenous population led the president to suspend in March the bilateral ceasefire between the State and these illegal armed groups in that region.
The inhabitants of northern Cauca tend to live in a permanent state of tension, given the possibility of an armed attack at any moment. In municipalities such as Corinto or Miranda, it is normal to find graffiti on walls with threats signed by the “FARC-EP,” and traces of the conflict can be seen on the facades of buildings or schools that end up affected by some kind of explosion. This warlike atmosphere has also spread to towns in the neighboring department of Valle del Cauca, such as Jamundí, where a motor bomb exploded at the beginning of June, almost simultaneously with other armed attacks in a nearby district.
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