For the second consecutive year, the country has seen an increase in lethal attacks against activists, approaching the levels of 2017, when it demobilized the powerful FARC guerrillas and 120 murders were recorded.
“The situation continues to be very serious in the territories, and I pay homage to the victims. In 2022, there continued to be high levels of massacres and homicides of human defenders,” lamented Juliette De Rivero, representative of that United Nations agency, after presenting the report. annual report on the situation of human rights in Colombia.
In 2022, the agency found 92 massacres – understood as the murder of three or more people in the same act -, against 78 in the previous year and 76 in 2020. A total of 321 people died in these attacks last year.
The displaced population has also grown, from around 72,000 in 2021 to 82,000 in the most recent assessment. The majority (65%) were indigenous or Afro.
The 116 murdered human rights defenders surpass the 100 cases in the previous report and the 94 in 2020. The last time the count surpassed 100 victims was in 2017, when the FARC surrendered its weapons, as part of a peace agreement signed in the last year
Although the historic pact has reduced the intensity of the conflict, guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers still operate in the country, challenging the State.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was established in Colombia in 1997, and its mandate has been renewed on several occasions. Its mission is to observe, advise and report on respect for human rights in the country, immersed in half a century of armed conflict that has claimed more than 9 million victims.