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50 Colombian social leaders have been assassinated so far in 2022
In Colombia, a total of 105 murders and 31 massacres have been registered in the first quarter of the year.
The authorities of the municipality of Puerto Concordia in the department of Meta reported this Monday that the community and peasant leader José Pascual Quevedo Velázquez was assassinated in that town.
With his death, the number of murders of social leaders in the country reached 50, which represents a significant increase compared to 2021, where the number of homicides reached 34.
Quevedo, who was an active member of several social organizations in his municipality, was murdered by several hit men over the weekend, while he was in a local store in the region.
The year 2022 began with an increase in crimes related to murder, a sign that predicts an increase in violence in the country throughout the year.
Even experts on the subject affirm that they could end as in 2016, when after the Peace Agreement between the FARC and the Colombian government, homicides increased like never before.
The Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) of Colombia, through its observatory of Human Rights and Conflicts, revealed through a comparative report of 2021 and 2022, that this year the number of homicides has increased, with a total to date of 105 murders and 31 massacres throughout the country.
The last recorded crime was last Sunday, April 3, in Ciudad Bolívar de Bogotá, where Carlos Humberto Siabato was murdered by a subject who arrived at his residence and without saying a word shot him, causing his death almost immediately..
New death threats
Two months before the presidential elections in Colombia, violence and murders in the country have grown significantly in this first quarter of 2022.
In these votes, the representative of the Coalition of the Left Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro, appears as the favorite.
For her part, Francia Márquez, an environmental and Afro leader, is the country's vice-presidential candidate and has recently received death threats, on behalf of the paramilitary group Águilas Negras.
Márquez posted on Twitter that he has already made the respective complaint, which is the third he has received in less than a month. "They also threatened our vice-presidential formula of Gustavo Petro. They want to impose terror on us in Colombia. We demand guarantees for our political exercise!" he said.
Apart from her, the elected candidates were threatened: Jahel Quiroga, Gloria Flórez, Alirio Uribe and Ariel Ávila. Also congressmen Gustavo Bolívar, Victoria Sandino, Carlos Antonio Lozada, María José Pizarro, Iván Cepeda and other personalities that make up the front lines, such as Hollman Morris and Rodrigo Londoño.
The candidate for the vice presidency of Colombia, uploaded to her social networks the letter sent to her by the cartel of the Black Eagles of the Capital Block, where they say "we have been warning about it and the time has come for all of Colombia to realize that the Chavista narco-guerrilla is about to come to power headed by alias el cacas and the black woman Francia Márquez".
Likewise, in the document they assure that in this month of April it will be the death of all the leaders who call themselves democrats, defenders of human and social rights, but who, according to the Black Eagles, are "guerrillas hiding behind the law."
These actions have been repetitive, which is why Márquez has continued to denounce the absence of guarantees that allow them to engage in politics and campaigns. For this reason they asked the current president, Iván Duque, to protect them so that they can exercise free political exercise and they also requested that the Prosecutor's Office thoroughly investigate the threats.
