More than 100 social leaders from across Colombia have already been assassinated in 2020. Between March 19 and 20, 2020, in the course of 24 hours, three social leaders in Colombia were murdered.
One of the victims were Ivo Humberto Bracamonte Quiroz, the social leader of Norte de Santander Department near the Venezuelan border. In another attack, Ángel Ovidio Quintero, a young social leader of Antioquia, was killed. Marco Rivadeneira was a social leader of Putumayo and worked for over 15 years as a leader of peasant and social organizations in Colomibia. He was participating in a meeting with peasant leaders when armed men barged into the meeting and forced Marcos to leave with them. He was later assassinated.
More than 100 social leaders from across Colombia have already been assassinated in 2020. Since the peace agreements between the National Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were signed in 2016, over 800 social leaders and human rights defenders have been assassinated in what organizations deem a genocide.
Protect the Forest condemns the murders of the three social leaders in Colombia.
“Our thoughts go to the victims, their families and the environmental and social movements that have lost three dedicated leaders,” said Elin Götmark, spokesperson, Protect the Forest.
Read a joint statement from Comité Colombia, Foro Social Panamazónico, on Censat Agua Viva – Friends of the Earth Colombia’s website regarding the death of Marco Rivadeneira here (in Spanish).