News Update: Recent Violence in Colombia Share This /

• On Thursday, 30 Colombian troops were wounded by explosives detonated by FARC guerrillas while they were traveling to defuse a car bomb in the Arauca department. While one soldier did require surgery for his injuries, none of the troops were critically injured.
• "Los urabeños" has begun threatening and attacking 80 former members who it believes have given security forces information that led to the capture of three of its members, who go by the aliases of "Guri-Guri", "El Pájaro" and "Cantin." Some of the demobilized have recently asked for government protection against the threats they receive from criminal groups. Since 2006, 31 demobilized paramilitaries have been killed in the department of Bolivar alone, and 1,800 have been killed throughout Colombia, according to police figures, and 2,330 threats have been made against demobilized persons since 2008.
• A 32-year-old man in Soacha claims he was beaten by police early Thursday morning. The man, Julio César Villa, says the police beat him and left him in a vacant parking lot. The medical report concluded that Villa, who was under the influence of drugs at the time, was injured with a short, blunt object. According to Villa's mother, this is not the first time Villa has been beaten by police. She says he was beaten by a police officer two years ago, who was reportedly fired.
• In Córdoba two students were found murdered Wednesday night. Mora Silvia Castillo, 20, a student of business administration at the University of Cartagena, Cereté and her cousin, Juan Carlos Martínez Castillo, 22, a student of marketing and sales at the Sena, were reportedly heading to an internet cafe at the time. The police believe that it may have been an attempted robbery, but no details of the investigation have been released.
• Bogotá's police chief said Tuesday that he had a “positive” assessment of security in Bogotá, citing a reduction in crime and an increase in the number of murder suspects captured since the year began, as well as an increase in the number of weapons seized by the police. In a press conference Tuesday, Bogotá Mayor Samuel Moreno also indicted the situation has improved, noting that, as an example, in Suba there had not been a homicide in 15 days.
• The FARC attacked Anorí Tuesday morning, as hundreds of displaced people returned to their homes. The guerrilla group blew up one of the bridges that connects Anorí with Campamento, injuring a contractor for the hydroelectrical center Porce III, John Alberto Pérez Posada, who was sent to a hospital in Medellín to recover. The FARC seeks to negotiate with the government terms in which there will be no spraying of illicit crops and no military presence in the area.

  The FARC also blew up two trucks Tuesday that were paving the road from San Andrés to Toledoin northeastern Antioquia. There were no casualties.

This post was written by CIP Intern Erin Shea