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The organization reported a number of killings which native authorities concluded had been retaliation for not following the measures created by these groups. HRW additionally detailed assaults on autos, threats, and coercion.
HRW stated it interviewed 55 individuals in 13 states in Colombia together with neighborhood leaders, prosecutors, workers at humanitarian organizations, law enforcement officials and native residents. The organization says it additionally reviewed 20 pamphlets signed by armed groups that appeared to be genuine and labored with different native sources.
One pamphlet from an armed group cited by HRW warned, “Those who fail to comply will be held to account under our law with his own life … Either you comply or you die.”
Groups concerned in imposing their very own restrictions on native populations at the beginning of the pandemic included the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), the Gaitanist Self-Defenses of Colombia (AGC), and different “FARC dissident groups,” HRW stated.
FARC, as soon as the biggest militant group in Colombia, signed a peace cope with the federal government in 2016. However, a variety of offshoot factions proceed to function in the nation.
The different groups, not like ELN, wouldn’t have established communications arms.
Colombia has reported almost 160,000 circumstances of Covid-19 — the fifth highest quantity in Latin America, following Mexico, Chile, Peru and Brazil, in accordance to Johns Hopkins University.
Since Monday, officers have applied new lockdown measures, based mostly on geographic zones for the capital metropolis, Bogota. Additionally, the nationwide authorities introduced the extension of the nationwide quarantine by means of August 1.
HRW famous that underneath worldwide regulation, the federal government “is obligated to protect the rights to life and physical integrity by taking adequate preventive measures against reasonably foreseeable threats from private actors, including organized criminal groups and other armed groups.”
The Colombian authorities additionally has an obligation, it stated, to take efficient and satisfactory steps to forestall the unfold of Covid-19 and to defend individuals’s proper to well being, in addition to to make sure the rights to meals and water.
“Draconian ‘punishments’ imposed by armed groups to prevent the spread of Covid-19 mean that people in remote and impoverished communities across Colombia risk being attacked and even killed if they leave their homes,” Vivanco stated.
“The government should urgently ramp up its efforts to protect these communities, ensure they have adequate food and water, and protect their health from the effects of Covid-19.”
Colombian authorities haven’t commented on HRW’s allegations on Wednesday, however officers have made comparable accusations in the previous.
On April 30, Colombia’s Ombudsman Carlos Negret formally requested the Interior Ministry to take motion in opposition to enforced lockdowns by groups just like the ELN, urging the federal government to enhance the presence of Colombia’s Army and National Police in sure areas, and to guarantee support to native civilian populations.
Between March 23 and April 27 alone, Negret’s workplace had registered up to 72 “violations of citizens’ rights” together with murders, arson of autos, compelled displacement and group kidnappings, he stated in the assertion.
More than half of those had been perpetrated “in the name of the health emergency,” in accordance to Negret.
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