According to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), drug cartels and rebel groups are imposing their own bloody coronavirus blockades across Colombia and killing those who do not obey.
At least eight civilians have been killed by armed groups, some of them remnants of Colombia’s half-century civil war, who are using WhatsApp chats and pamphlets to warn citizens about closures in rural areas where they operate.
In Tumaco, an impoverished and violent port city on the Pacific coast, gangs prohibit residents from fishing, limiting their ability to earn money and food. A curfew at 5pm, much stricter than government-imposed measures, is also forcing street vendors to enter.
Across the country, violent gangs prevent people from leaving their homes, even when they are sick, according to humanitarian workers cited in the report. In two provinces, Cauca and Guaviare, armed groups have set fire to the motorcycles of those who ignored their restrictions.
“Transport between villages has been closed, and when someone is suspected of having Covid-19 they are told to leave the region or they will be killed,” a community leader in Putumayo province in southern Peru told The Guardian. Colombia, on condition of anonymity. fear of retaliation “And the people have no choice but to obey because they never see the government here.”
On June 8, La Mafia, a drug gang with ties to the right-wing paramilitarism, murdered Edison León Pérez, community leader and activist, in the city of Putumayo, San Miguel, days after he asked the authorities premises that will deal with the band’s closing orders. .
Like much of South America, Colombia is preparing for the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. Since the first Covid-19 case was confirmed on March 6, medical authorities have confirmed 159,898 cases, with 5,625 deaths. Cases regularly increase by more than 5,000 a day.
The government has imposed blockades, both nationally and locally, but they have never been as strict as those decreed by armed groups, and the consequences of breaking them are not so severe.
Colombia was supposed to be turning a chapter on such violence. A historic peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), then the largest rebel group in South America, in 2016 formally ended during five decades of civil war that killed more than 260,000 people and forced 7 million to flee from their homes. But that has not translated into peace on the ground.
At least 271 community leaders have been killed since the peace agreement was implemented in early 2017, while the armed groups continue to fight for the territory that the FARC left.
Some of the armed groups are dissident FARC fighters who refused to surrender their weapons; others belong to smaller rebel armies and right-wing paramilitary militias. Everyone makes their money from part of the cocaine trade.
HRW called on the Iván Duque government to do more to protect those at the mercy of countless armed groups during the shutdown.
“The draconian ‘punishments’ imposed by armed groups to prevent the spread of Covid-19 mean that people in remote and impoverished communities in Colombia are at risk of being attacked and even killed if they leave their homes,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of HRW in the United States. a statement on Wednesday morning. “The government must urgently step up its efforts to protect these communities, ensuring they have adequate food and water, and protecting their health from the effects of Covid-19.”
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