Rapid Response Network

Barranco de Loba, a municipality in Bolívar Department, has been the site of violence against social leaders. This area, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Second Division of the Army, has at least two illegally armed groups active in armed conflict: the National Liberation Army (ELN, Ejército de Liberación Nacional) and the Gaitanista Army of Colombia (EGC, Ejército Gaitanista de Colombia, formerly known as the Clan del Golfo).  The region has been plagued by violence and insecurity; social leaders are often targeted by the violence. In March 2022, a former Community Action Board president, Eduardo Emilio Vanegas Mendoza, was assassinated there.

On September 28, 2024, social leader Roxenda Sanguino Aguilar went missing. Her body was found the following day in the El Torito sector. There were several gunshots to her body and face. At the young age of 43, the former president of the Community Action Board of the Santa Rosa neighborhood of Barranco de Loba became the 123rd social leader assassinated in Colombia this year. Roxenda was not known to have any enemies.

Cauca, a department on the Pacific coast in the southwest of Colombia, is the site of many armed clashes. Due to the ongoing violence, community leaders (especially those from Indigenous and campesino communities) are at constant risk.

While leading  a community assembly in the El Carmelo hamlet on September 23, armed men burst into the meeting and shot campesino leader Edwin Polanco, inflicting serious injuries. Adding to the growing sense of fear, the lifeless body of peasant leader Carlos Andrés Becoche Zambrano was found on the night of October 9, after being kidnapped by an armed group three days prior in the Cenequeta area of Cajibío. We are urging that the national government publicly denounce attacks against community leaders and implement new strategies to ensure their safety.

Luis Carlos Coicué serves as governor of the Nasa Reservation Jerusalén San Luis Alto Picudito in Villagarzón (Putumayo Department), which has consistently denounced violence committed by all armed actors—guerrillas, paramilitaries and the Colombian National Army alike. Despite this, Nasa leaders have been falsely attacked on social networks, unfoundedly accused of protecting “some border commandos.” This slander has placed leaders like Luis Carlos Coicué at particular risk.

The level of danger was heightened in March when an armed man with his face covered delivered a written warning. The unsigned document, which named leaders and community members from the reservation, stated: “Every collaborator becomes a military objective of our block.”  The notice came during a period of weeks when paramilitary organizations were occupying schools and churches; community residents were confined due to minefields and other unexploded ordnance. Because of imminent threats, community members held an assembly for 12 days straight as a strategy to safeguard their reservation.

When Governor Coicué and his wife received specific death threats in September (“tell your husband to stop causing problems or we’ll blow your head off”), the National Protection Unit assessed the risk to Luis Carlos Coicué as “extraordinary,” but they only offered him a cell phone and armored vest as protective measures.

Indigenous communities in Colombia are under threat of extinction. Shifts in climate are severely impacting their ability to continue their ancestral means of subsistence (fishing, farming). But more immediate is the violent displacement from armed actors.

The Wiwa Indigenous communities in La Guajira Department are some of the largest native communities in the country. They are one of four Indigenous groups (along with the Arhuaco, Kogui, and Kankuamo) who reside on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, one of the highest coastal mountain ranges on the planet. IRTF has been writing on behalf of the Wiwa people for the past 20 years. Two years ago, we echoed the Wiwa’s call for all armed actors in the Caribbean coastal region to unite in a joint proposal for Global Territorial Peace.  Shortly after their declaration for peace, the paramilitary organization Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Self-Defense Conquistadors of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta) began distributing pamphlets, in which they threatened to take measures against the Wiwa inhabitants of the region, whom they describe as "ass-kissers, drinkers, womanizers," among other adjectives.

In September of this year, four young Wiwa men from the community of El Limón Carrizal (Luis Elias Nieves Mendoza, Deivi Gomez, Eduardo Enrique Joño Calvo, and Luis Eduardo Mojica) were all stopped by armed men of the parmilitary organization Self-Defense Forces of the Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN) at illegal checkpoints, where they were assaulted and detained for several hours or even multiple days. Luis Eduardo Mojica was kidnapped for 24 days.

Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo, a 30-year-old university student and father of a young daughter, had been receiving threats from illegal armed groups.  Deeply committed to his community at the Pueblo Nuevo Indigenous Reservation in the Indigenous territory of Sa’th Tama Kiwe, “Lobo,” as he was affectionately known by friends and family, was serving as coordinator of the Indigenous guard in the Indigenous territory of Sa’th Tama Kiwe in northern Cauca Department.

The national office of the Human Rights Ombudsman was aware of the particular dangers faced by Indigenous and other human rights defenders in northern Cauca. The office had already issued early warnings because of several illegal armed groups operating in the area and threatening community leaders.  Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo had filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office, made a statement to the Public Prosecutor's Office, and requested individual protection measures from the National Protection Unit (UNP). The UNP, however, did not assess the seriousness of his situation and did not grant him protective measures.

On his way to pick up his wife and daughter from a swimming class on August 29, he pulled into a gasoline service station at about 4:30pm. In broad daylight in the El Pescador district of Caldono municipality, assailants gunned him down, and then sped away on their motorcycles.

The University of Cauca issued this statement: “The death of this renowned anthropology student from our alma mater comes at a time when the consequences of this absurd war continue to cause great grief. Therefore, reiterating our commitment to life and peace, we demand real guarantees for the protection of life, not only of our university community, but of every inhabitant of Cauca. We cannot allow the dreams and lives of those who fight for a more just and humane country to continue to be cut short. Men and women, young people, adolescents and children of this land need and deserve to live in a place where hope is not just another victim of the conflict, but a force capable of transforming the future.”

Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo, ¡presente!

Caribe Afirmativo, a Colombian LGBTQI+ advocacy organization, reports a growing wave of systemic violence toward the LGBTQI+ community across the country. The organization is based on the Caribbean coast in Barranquilla, the capital city of Atlántico, the department with the most killings of LGBTQI+ persons in Colombia. So far this year, they have documented at least 31 killings, with at least 16 victims who were transwomen.

In just one week, three LGBTQI+ persons were killed, two of them in Atlántico Department: Armando René Torres Bohórquez (on August 29 in Atlántico Department), Germán Ríos Cifuentes (on September 1 in Valle del Cauca Department), and Valeska London (on September 4 in Atlántico Department).

In addition to our request to officials in Colombia that both the material and intellectual authors of these assassinations be found and prosecuted, we are also urging that the government:

-work to end the culture of impunity of crimes committed against members of the LGBTQI+ community

-create a culture of economic and social inclusion to integrate transgender individuals so that they can live and work in less vulnerable conditions

-effectively comply with the creation of the mechanism for monitoring and preventing violence and discrimination against LGBTQI+ people, as established in the National Development Plan

Since 2017, Amnesty International and the Inter-Church Commission for Peace and Justice have documented a string of attacks and threats against Jani Silva, president of the Association for the Integral Sustainable Development of the Amazonian Pearl (ADISPA), a community organization managing the Peasant Reserve Zone of La Perla Amazónica in the municipality of Puerto Asís, Putumayo Department.  State protection under the National Protection Unit (UNP) has proven insufficient to prevent at least seven different security incidents against her. Since January 2020, she has experienced persecution, illegal digital surveillance, death threats, shots fired into her home, and she uncovered a plan for her own assassination.

On September 10, Jani Silva received a phone call threatening her life, in which the caller described a truck that was provided to ADISPA by the UNP and explicitly stated plans to blow it up with her inside. Later that same day, unknown men with high-speed motorcycles were seen on two occasions prowling around Jani Silva’s house and ADISPA’s office in the town center of Puerto Asís.

Given that in 2023 more environmental defenders were killed in Colombia than in any other country in the world, we are deeply concerned for the safety of Jani Silva.

Campesino land defenders continue to face great risks in Honduras: from large landholders, agricultural companies, and agents of the government—judges, prosecutors, and security forces like the National Police.

In the early hours of the morning of August 20, private security guards and employees of the sugar company AZUNOSA used excessive force to evict campesino families in La Sarrosa Village, in El Progreso, Yoro Department.  They beat, assaulted and seriously injured the families, using stones, machetes and firing firearms indiscriminately. Seriously injured was María Munguía Betancourt, who fell to the ground unconscious after receiving several blows with stones. For two hours, AZUNOSA employees blocked the main road, preventing the local fire department’s emergency medical team from providing assistance.

Campesino organizations are struggling for their legitimate right to land, food and a dignified life free of violence. The state must end its complicity in the harassment, stigmatization, and criminalization of campesino leaders, as well as its participation in violent evictions.

Campesino land defenders continue to face great risks in Honduras. Organizations like the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) hold large agricultural corporations and large landholders—like the infamous Dinant Corporation and its owners in the Facusse family—responsible for human rights crimes. They also decry collusion among those powerful economic interests, state security forces, public prosecutors, and judges who write illegal eviction orders.

As coordinator of the Campesino Movement of Ceibita Way (a local affiliate of the CNTC), Olman García Ortiz was dedicated to promoting access to land and land tenure for small farmers.  On the afternoon of August 4, hitmen shot him multiple times while he was riding his motorcycle in the village of Ceibita Way, municipality of Esparta, Atlántida Department. His lifeless body fell to the pavement. The CNTC reports that he had requested protection measures, but the government denied that request.

Honduras was recently ranked by Global Witness as the most dangerous place on the planet for environmental defenders, with the dubious distinction of more environmental defenders assassinated per capita than anywhere else on the planet.

In the community of Guapinol, it was clear that Juan Antonio López’s commitment to environmental stewardship was deeply rooted in his Catholic faith. He was actively involved in the church, serving as coordinator of Social Pastoral Care in the Diocese of Trujillo and co-founding the Integral Ecology Pastoral care in Honduras.

In August 2018, he and other residents of the community of El Guapinol in Tocoa, Colón Department, organized a peaceful encampment to block construction of an iron oxide mine inside the Carlos Escaleras Mejía National Park. The extraction project would threaten animal life and contaminate small rivers (water sources for 13 communities) that empty into the Río Aguán, placing 90,000 inhabitants at risk of losing their agricultural crops and homes. In late October 2018, police and 1500 heavily armed members of the Army, Cobras (militarized anti-riot police units) violently broke up the encampment with rifles, shields, clubs and tear gas bomb—beating and detaining the encampment residents. Juan López became one of 32 Guapinol residents criminalized for their protest. Eight of the defenders (the Guapinol 8) were unjustly imprisoned for 914 days.

Tragically, on September 14, 2024, Juan López (a 46-year-old husband and father) joined the list of martyrs in Guapinol who have been assassinated for their environmental defense, a list that includes: Levin Alexander Bonilla (October 27, 2018), Arnold Joaquin Morazán Erazo (Oct 13 2020), Aly Domínguez and Jairo Bonilla (January 7, 2023), and Oquelí Domínguez (June 15, 2023).

Local bishops, the bishops conference of Latin America, and even Pope Francis have publicly decried the assassination of Juan Antonio López and called for justice.