They denounce witchcraft rituals in Armero: the victims claim to benefit from the drama

In November 1985, the country experienced one of the the most serious tragedies of its history. Gunsmitha municipality located in the Tolima departmentended up buried after the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano. There are several circumstances surrounding this historic event, however, the desecration of the space and the bodies that ended up being buried there continue to generate complaints from the relatives of the victims. the local mayor, Ricardo Ramirezexplained that people come to the area to perform witchcraft rites.

“There are not the number of uniformed officers to put in place the necessary surveillance in the area. It’s almost impossible because the checks carried out by the authorities are day-to-day and at night, only checkpoints are carried out on the main road in the variant that goes to Ambalema and Lebanon,” the president said, in a dialogue compiled by Tolima AlertWhen we talk about what is happening in Armero Guayabal Cemeteryan area of ​​more or less five hectares.

“The only way they don’t follow each other desecrate graves in the area would be to remove the remains and take them elsewhere. It’s a pretty complicated case in the sense that it’s too broad and you can’t do surveillance, that’s something practically impossible because surveillance events take place day and night, there are checkpoints, but on the road and not inside the field,” he added.

These types of complaints are not new. Over the past year, in fact, in testimonies compiled by snail radio, Jose Antonio Rubioa guide to the ruins of Armero and a survivor of the tragedy, pointed out that petition rights had even been put in place to deal with the problem, but, that no authority was aware of doing anything about it.

“They took the leftovers, they come and take them all away. All the time, people watch how they do witchcraft (…) People come at night or in the afternoon, do rituals and they take the last of our people. They take what was not swept away by the avalanche from the cemetery. I can’t say the names of the people. more or less a few three years ago, I saw people who were from here,” Rubio pointed out in his interview with the aforementioned station.

“When we get out of there, we take them. Lots of money moved to Armero and following this they dug the graves to see what they can find. You call the law and there are no results. They take the scraps and pan for gold ’cause Armero was such a prosperous town. Also, at that time, gold was used in mouthpieces and rings. They come looking for it and do witchcraft“, he commented, talking about why it would be an attractive place for those who desecrate the space in which the tragedy occurred. on the night of November 13, 1985.

The newspaper The weather, in one of its most recent publications, exposed the testimonies of some of the relatives of the victims. Germán Torres, one of them, explained that he no longer wanted to visit the space where his relatives are buried, because, according to him, nothing remains of them. “We no longer want to visit our loved ones in the cemetery, what are we going to do if there is nothing from them? I left, but I returned home very sad. They cannot steal from us, they are the beautiful memories of them”, he underlined in the story he gave to the national newspaper.

Agree with Alfenibal Tinocopresident of the Federation for thl Armorer DevelopmentFedearmero, the only grave that has not been desecrated is that of omaira sanchez, the young girl whose death was recorded under the eyes of the international press. As he told the newspaper, it’s because miracles are attributed to the girl.