Bogota – Social leader Sócrates Sevillano and his wife, Cielo Rujeles, were murdered by unknown assailants in the Colombian town of Orito, department of Putumayo, bordering Ecuador, Official sources reported this Saturday.
The High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, reported on social networks that Sevillano, former president of a Community Action Board (JAC) and his wife “were murdered today” in the El Mirador hamlet, which is part of the municipality of Orito.
Rueda expressed his sorrow to the family of the victims, while demanding that those responsible for the crime “stop your murders, life is unique, Colombia deserves another present”.
In this same department, but in the town of Puerto Leguízamo, social leaders Rigo Alape and Ferney Morales, members of the Mecaya Peasant Workers’ Association (Astracam), a subsidiary of the National Federation of Agricultural Unitary Trade Unions, were assassinated two weeks ago.
The Institute for the Study of Development and Peace (Indepaz) said that so far 140 leaders had been assassinated in Colombia, a figure that increases to 1,367 since the Peace Agreement was signed in 2016.
Last August, the Colombian Government installed in the municipality of Caldono (southwest) the first Unified Command Post for Life (PMU), that seeks to protect the population affected by violence, especially social, indigenous, and demobilized leaders.
On that occasion, the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, explained that more than 30 congressmen from across the political spectrum and members of the Senate Peace Commission would begin to visit the 65 most violent municipalities affected by the conflict in the country.