Violence is relentless in Colombia. A new massacre on the Pacific coast of the department of Cauca took the lives of 12 people who were spending time in the village of La Sagrada Familia, in the municipality of López de Micay and on the Naya River. According to the first versions of the authorities, the events, which occurred last Sunday, were perpetrated by an unidentified armed actor. In the region there are structures of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla, dissident groups of the FARC and local criminal gangs.
The victims are five women and seven men. One of them was from the neighbouring Buenaventura, according to information provided to Blu Radio by Carlos Portes, the official of Colombia’s main port. The official has clarified that there were no clashes. The governor of her department, Valle del Cauca, Dilian Francisca Toro, has stated in various media outlets that there is a hypothesis that the ELN is responsible for the massacre. “In La Sagrada Familia there were some people partying and alias Tatín, belonging to the Jaime Martínez front, was there, and the ELN arrived and attacked them,” said the veteran politician on Caracol Radio.
Date: 08/09/24
Lopez de Micay, Cauca
Number of victims: 12 peopleIn the village of La Sagrada Familia, a rural area of the municipality of López de Micay, Cauca, bordering Buenaventura, a massacre has occurred where 5 women and 7 men were murdered. pic.twitter.com/t2x2ot2ZVx
— INDEPAZ (@Indepaz) September 10, 2024
However, the ELN’s Western Front leader, Omar Gómez, has published a statement in which it distances itself from what happened and points out that it was a “settling of scores” within the Jaime Martínez front that sought to assassinate “the head of finances of that group, known as alias Titan, some of his men and sentimental partners.”
The community of the village was the one that alerted the authorities of what had happened. So far, the Public Force has not been able to enter the area due to the presence of armed groups. According to Ombudsman Potes, it was the relatives who transferred the bodies to the urban center of López de Micay and to the district of Zaragoza, located on the San Juan de Micay River. This is a different basin from that of the Sagrada Familia, which is located about ten kilometers of thick jungle from Zaragoza.
For his part, the mayor of the municipality, Jhon Harold García, has said that they still do not have “knowledge of which group perpetrated this massacre” and that for the moment he is supporting the families of the victims. The Ombudsman has issued an alert for these municipalities, which warns of the risk to the community due to confrontations between armed groups. These are areas with a dispersed population, traditionally jungle-like, and where several illegal economies are strong, such as the exit of drug trafficking routes, the presence of illicit crops and the illegal extraction of gold.
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This Tuesday, during the day, a security council will be held in the Valle del Cauca city of Cartago, with the presence of the Minister of Defense. The murder of the 12 people, according to the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), is the 47th massacre so far in 2024.
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