Rapid Response Network

The Association of Teachers of Antioquia (Adida) and the Colombian Federation of Education Workers (Fecode) are urging government authorities to create protection schemes for teachers in rural areas.

Hitmen shot 49-year-old school teacher Jorge Enrique Cano Jaramillo to death on February 7 while he was on his way to work at the Roberto López Rural Educational Institution in the Sofía neighborhood of Santo Domingo, located in northeastern Antioquia Department. The killing of Jorge Enrique Cano is not an isolated incident. His murder follows a series of attacks against teachers in Antioquia this year. On January 10, teacher Daniel Esteban Raigoza was murdered in the municipality of Turbo;  on January 15, teachers Geiver Nair Palacio and Carlos Sarmiento were victims of a hitman attack in Fredonia. These events have generated concern among educators and highlighted the risks faced by those working in areas affected by armed violence.

Indigenous rights defenders and other social leaders are at great risk in northern Cauca Department, where illegal armed groups battle for territory and control of land for illicit crops.

On March 1, armed men on a motorcycle in Toribío, Cauca, shot Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel nine times in the head. He was taken to a municipal health center but died due to the severity of his injuries.

Édgar Tumiñá, age 48, was a recognized leader of the Nasa people of northern Cauca. A member of the Indigenous Guard (Kiwe Thegnas), he taught children how to avoid being recruited into armed groups, how to provide first aid to injured persons, and how to shelter during gunfire. Illegal armed groups have a strong presence in Toribío, growing marijuana and coca (for cocaine production) on the reservation of the Nasa people. Since February, thousands of people have been displaced or forcibly confined because of conflicts between the armed groups.  Furthermore, they attempt to recruit the Indigenous children into their ranks.

The brother of Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel was assassinated in 2014. Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel himself had received threats and already survived other assassination attempts. According to the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), he was being targeted by the Dagoberto Ramos Front (a dissident group that splintered from the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).  

In Colombia, a human rights defender is assassinated every two days. In 2024, there were 173 social leaders killed.  In 2023, the death toll was 188.  In 2022, 187 were murdered. Now in the first quarter of 2025, 40 social leaders have been murdered.

Diego Alexander Herrera Carranza became number 40 on March 14, 2025 when armed attackers approached him at a public establishment in the Kennedy neighborhood of Barrancabermeja, Santander Department. They shot him repeatedly—killing him instantly—and fled.

Diego Herrera was a key leader of the human rights movement in the Magdalena Medio region. An active member of the Barrancabermeja Victims' Participation Roundtable, he defended communities victimized by the armed conflict, promoted initiatives for victim reparations, access to justice, and compliance with peace agreements.

For many years, the Afro-Honduran and Garífuna residents of Diamond Rock (Bay Islands) have been victims of harassment, threats, and persecution, which has generated a climate of fear and uncertainty in the community. At the root of the controversy is ancestral land of the residents of Diamond Rock, which was legally granted to them in 1965. For the past twenty years, the powerful Cooper-McNab family has been illegally occupying land belonging to the McLaughlin family, in violation of their land and cultural rights. The McLaughlin family, with support from other residents of Diamond Rock, has repeatedly filed complaints against the Cooper-McNab family for the crime of land usurpation. This year, in an exercise of their right to self-determination, the McLaughlin family began the process of  reoccupying their ancestral territory. On January 5, they decided to lift the gates, remove the wooden fence, clear the entrance and recover their property.

On January 28, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a prosecutorial request seeking arrest warrants and judicial detention orders against 13 residents of Diamond Rock, including members of the McLaughlin family.  They are being accused of arson, robbery with violence, and property damage within the very ancestral land of the McLaughlin family. This misuse of the powers of the Public Prosecutor is an abuse of criminal law. 

René Alfonso Garavito is a valued community member of the Indigenous Makaguan tribe in Arauca Department. He juggles being a a father of three, a university student (studying public administration), and an active member of the Indigenous Guard on his people’s reservation (Reserve Cusay la Colorada).

Tragically, while he was commuting between two towns on September 20, three armed men apprehended him, held him at gunpoint, tied him up and took him away while his 11-year-old nephew watched. His relatives, who suspect he is being held by the National Liberation Army (ELN),  are experiencing much distress and anguish; his nephew now has routine nightmares after watching the kidnapping.

IRTF has joined an international call to prioritize a thorough investigation into the kidnapping of René Alfonso Garavito, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice. With his family, we pray that he is released and returned unharmed.

Heber Rivera Méndez was a pivotal figure advocating for peasant farmer rights, human rights, and social justice in Valle del Cauca Department. He served as president of both the Communal Action Board of the Venus district of Tuluá municipality and the Association of Peasant Workers of Valle del Cauca (ASTRACAVA).

Tragically, in the early morning hours of September 24, armed individuals entered his home, shooting him multiple times and tragically ending his life. His death leaves behind a great void in the local community.

We are urging that the government work with community based organizations to dismantle illegal armed groups operating in the region that continue to impose norms and social control, targeting those who defend human rights.

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.