BOGOTA – At least 13 people hae died in two massacres in different parts of Colombia, said authorities yesterday.
The killings took place in Antioquia department in the northwest and Cauca in the southwest, areas hit hard by violence this year.
Since January, Colombia has suffered dozens of massacres – defined as attacks in which at least three people die – making 2020 the worst year since the signing in 2016 of a peace agreement with the former guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
In the Antioquia town of Betania, five coffee growers and three other people were killed in an overnight attack at a farm.
Some “10 heavily armed men... entered a dormitory at the Gabriela farm” and “fired indiscriminately”, Mayor Carlos Villada told AFP.
The killings are believed to be linked to drug trafficking.
In the small town of Argelia in Cauca department, at least five people died and two were wounded in attacks by the same man at a pool hall, a bar and a discotheque.
Other recent attacks have also targeted nightspots.
Leftist rebels of the National Liberation Army; dissident members of FARC, which became a political party with the 2016 peace accord; and, drug traffickers have clashed in the area over revenues from drug trafficking and illegal mining.
Cauca lies along a trafficking route linking Central America to the US. – AFP, November 23, 2020
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