The second massacre of young people in a week mourns and scandalizes Colombia

Some of the youths murdered in Samaniego (Nariño), in southern Colombia. Image published by the Government of Nariño.

Colombia woke up again with the news of a new massacre that returns it to the past when armed groups committed collective murders with impunity. Nine young people were shot dead in the municipality of Samaniego (Nariño), in the south of the country, from Saturday night to Sunday. This second massacre in a few days, after five teenagers were beheaded in Cali, has scandalized Colombians. According to the governor of Nariño, Jhon Rojas, the armed incursion on Saturday in a house where the young people were meeting also left several wounded. "The presence of armed groups in Nariño violates International Humanitarian Law and puts the community in terror," said the regional president, adding that in the last two months there have been more than 20 homicides in Samaniego, a municipality of 49,000 inhabitants historically affected by violence.

The president, Iván Duque, has condemned the massacre and announced the dispatch of the Army and the Police. “I have ordered Generals Eduardo Zapateiro and Jorge Vargas to go to the area. We are going to get to the bottom and find the perpetrators of this crime ”, he said. However, the head of government made a similar announcement after the murder of five teenagers in Cali last Tuesday. Their bodies were found with signs of torture in a sugar cane field in an area inhabited by people displaced by violence.

“The events of yesterday in Cali, where young dreamers were victims of violence, hurt us. To their families, our solidarity. We must reject violence and promote the antidote of entrepreneurship and creativity to keep boys away from these threats ”, Duque spread on his social networks with the hashtag #SemanaJoven. A message that generated criticism because it was not exactly a good week for young people and children: on Monday the murder of two 12 and 17-year-old students, who were murdered by paramilitaries of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces, was also known.

• Return of terror
• The brutal punishments of Colombian armed groups to impose their law during the quarantine
• Violence against demobilized FARC members displaces nearly 100 ex-guerrillas

Cauca and Nariño are two of the areas hardest hit by paramilitary groups and FARC dissidents, who are fighting over drug trafficking routes; and during the covid-19 pandemic, these groups have imposed strict rules on the population. But at the same time they are two highly militarized regions, which is why civil society asks President Iván Duque to review his military response to the massacres that are beginning to be repeated. "Where is the national government? Undaunted as the pandemic of the slaughter of humble youth spreads worse than the coronavirus? Where is a plan to offer them education, employment and opportunities? Where is the youngest president that Colombia has ever had? ”, The mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, has tweeted.

Collective killings in Colombia have been a painful mark for years. According to the National Center for Historical Memory, between 1958 and 2018 there were 4,210 massacres both at the hands of right-wing paramilitary groups and guerrillas, causing 24,447 fatalities. After the peace agreement sealed between the Government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC, now converted into a political party with parliamentary representation, it was expected that the State would reach the most affected areas. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2019 once again presented the highest number of massacres since 2014. In the first year of Iván Duque's mandate, 36 massacres were perpetrated in which 133 people died.