Rest of World News: BUCARAMANGA: An international monitoring group on Wednesday accused police officers in Colombia of responsibility for the deaths of 20 people and othe.
Human Rights Watch said 20 protesters have died at the hands of Colombian police in what were "not isolated incidents by rogue officers, but rather the result of systemic shortcomings."
Massacres doubled last year in Colombia, UN says 2 minutes read
Bogota, Feb 23 (efe-epa).- Colombia suffered 76 massacres resulting in 292 deaths last year, more than doubling the number in 2020 and the highest one-year total since 2014, according to a report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented here Tuesday.
Though the Andean nation’s homicide rate declined slightly in 2020, from 25 to 23.7 murders for every 100,000 residents, the year saw an intensification of violence and an increase in “territorial and social control” exercised by criminals and other armed groups.
“Since 2018, the number of massacres has increased constantly,” the OHCHR representative in Colombia, Juliette de Rivero, told a news conference in Bogota.
December 16, 2020
The United Nations’ human rights chief called on Colombia’s government on Tuesday to take “stronger and much more effective action to protect the population” from “appalling and pervasive violence.”
In a press statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned a recent surge in massacres and the ongoing mass killing of human rights defenders and former FARC guerrillas taking part in a peace process.
The UN’s human rights chief urged the government of President Ivan Duque to step up efforts to protect the population against the violence of illegal armed groups held responsible for much of the violence.