Armed groups have claimed at least 17 lives in various parts of Colombia in recent days, one of the heaviest tolls of violence in that country since the signing of the 2016 peace agreement, authorities said on Saturday.
Until Friday, according to the authorities, this death toll was eleven dead in attacks in regions bordering Venezuela and Ecuador.
And on Saturday a “new massacre” was committed which left “at least six dead” and two “missing”, indicated in a video posted on the Internet Jhon Rojas, governor of Nariño (southwest), one of the regions affected by this violence.
According to the governor, Colombian President Iván Duque is due to attend a meeting with authorities in the southwest of the country to examine the upsurge in violence financed by drug trafficking.
The United Nations had so far identified 33 massacres in 2020 in Colombia, in territories plagued by armed groups, where the underground economy, poverty and “a limited state presence” dominate.
The UN classifies as a “massacre” any assassination of at least three people perpetrated at the same time by the same perpetrator or group of perpetrators.
Groups of delinquents are believed to be responsible for 78% of these murders. The vast majority (80%) is also located in departments where there are “enclaves of illegal coca production”, according to the UN.