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Weeks before the massacre of Álvaro José Caicedo, Jair Cortés, Josmar Jean Paul Cruz, Luis Fernando Montaño and Léider Cárdenas, a vigilante from the cañaduzal on private property was assassinated.
Since then, the guards who took turns doing these tasks in a private property, saw how – daily or frequently – these adolescents entered to bathe in a lagoon or eat sugarcane in this cornered area in eastern Cali.
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In Llano Verde there are families in a situation of displacement due to the armed conflict, reintegrated and relocated from areas at risk of flooding in the jarillón of the Cauca River.
It is a marginal neighborhood that borders with hundreds of hectares of cañaduzales within the so-called ejidos of Cali, lands that at the time of the Spanish Crown were used for servitude and for the population to have recreational activities.
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Today, 2,022,000 square meters belong to the municipality and are public, while 196,400 more hectares correspond to a private area.
The collective burial took place in the middle of a caravan guarded by the police to a cemetery on the road to Yumbo.
Juan Pablo Rueda Bustamante / Weather
Since that assassination of a vigilante, Álvaro José Caicedo, Jair Cortés, Josmar Jean Paul Cruz, Luis Fernando Montaño and Léider Cárdenas have been in the crosshairs of three men, according to the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa. These men were apparently feeding feelings of racism and resentment against these young people, who, in addition to bathing in the lagoon, liked to eat the cane.
However, as the prosecutor Barbosa pointed out, none of the slaughtered minors was linked to the prior murder of a vigilante, while the families reiterated the call that they are not criminals and that they demand justice for these children.
These antecedents led to the fact that that August 11, when the five minors entered the cañaduzal, it was as if they already had a death sentence on them, which coincided with the hypothesis of the same community of a genocide against this population of Afro-descendants, most of whom live in Llano Verde.
The entrance of the adolescents would have been registered before noon, taking into account that some of them did not go to their homes for lunch.
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The families of the youths killed in a ravine in Llano Verde, in eastern Cali, demanded justice and that the suspects in the massacre be investigated.
Juan Pablo Rueda Bustamante / Weather
Immediately, one of the guards who was arrested in the operation carried out by the authorities, with the Prosecutor’s Office leading this 16-day investigation, would have alerted his two colleagues.
One of them operated heavy machinery and the other would also be a vigilante, they communicated with each other. The authorities revealed that the two alleged murderers were part of the ‘Suzuki’ gang.
The hours advanced and on the afternoon of that Tuesday, the three men – two with firearms and one with a sharp weapon, apparently a machete – would have perpetrated the massacre.
Some residents of Llano Verde said that that day they saw two men with blood and machetes leave the gorge.
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The murderers would have continued at the site until a resident of Llano Verde saw them rush out
The murders of the five boys would have been registered at the end of the afternoon, Also taking into account that some people who were looking for the adolescents during the afternoon of that August 11, arrived at night at the site, where there is a booth.
There, according to the community, the alleged murderers had hidden themselves by turning off the light in the compound.
The murderers would have continued at the site until a resident of Llano Verde saw them rush out. Thus began to spread the word that men smeared with blood had left the gully and demanded the arrest – at that time – by the Police.
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The funeral was attended by friends and relatives of the victims, the mayor of Cali, the General of the Police and the social leader Francia Márquez, among hundreds of other people who rejected the act.
Juan Pablo Rueda Bustamante / Weather
As the prosecutor Barbosa said, five of the children (Luis Fernando, Jair, Jósmar and Léider) had signs of shooting. Álvaro José Caicedo’s body had a wound with a sharp weapon. The minor’s father, who bears the same name, was with other relatives in the gorge.
Álvaro José Caicedo maintained that he entered the gorge where the bodies were after 6:30 in the afternoon. He did so because after searching for his son with friends and in the houses of other families in Llano Verde, between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, a relative alerted that the bodies were in the cañaduzal.
The man found his son with a wound to the neck, caused by a sharp weapon, and several blows.
Álvaro Caicedo was the youngest of all the victims that afternoon. He was 14 years old and in eighth grade at the Llano Verde educational institution of the Santa Isabel de Hungary Foundation, which belongs to the Archdiocese of Cali.
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The country was moved and showed its rejection
Late on the night of August 11, the other families arrived at the scene and the Police arrived at the site, corroborating that the bodies were there and that it had been a massacre.
Two days later, leaders of the area and even of the National Association of Displaced Afro-Colombians (Afrodes), as well as the leader Francia Márquez, repudiated the massacre and pointed out that it was a genocide against the Afro-Colombian population in Cali and the country.
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The population in Llano Verde demanded answers, while some families reported threats against them.
Juan Pablo Rueda Bustamante / Weather
The Archbishop of Cali, Monsignor Darío de Jesús Monsalve, indicated that this would have been a generational genocide against young people who in their misery and poverty do not have opportunities for development and pointed out that the authorities must stop the “death squads.”
The Police and the Army reported at the beginning that the massacre was by illegal armed groups associated with drug trafficking forces.
After three almost three weeks without receiving information in this regard, the population in Llano Verde demanded answers, while some families reported threats against them.
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The mayor of Cali, Jorge Iván Ospina, requested this Thursday to the Prosecutor’s Office, the accompaniment of the United States FBI for the investigation of the crime that shook and still mourns the capital of Valle.
CALI
