New massacre leaves four murdered in Medellín, Colombia | News

A total of four people were killed and six more injured, leaving a new massacre that took place this Sunday night in the El Santuario neighborhood, located south of Barranquilla, in Colombia, the Institute for Development and Peace Studies confirmed on Monday. (Unpeaceful).

READ ALSO:

Death of indigenous guard denounced in Nariño, Colombia

According to local sources, the incident occurred when a group of people were outside a store watching a soccer match between two local teams, when they arrived strapped on a motorcycle and one of them began shooting indiscriminately.

Likewise, the witnesses explain that the bullets hit the four men who died on the spot, including a patrolman from the Metropolitan Police of Barranquilla.

The victims were identified as Reinaldo Jose Orozco Picalua (active police patrolman), Javier Andrés Guevara Correa, Ever José Lizama Melgarejo and Ronald José Zabala Sarmiento. Six other people were wounded.

Indepaz recalled that the Ombudsman's Office had issued Early Warning 004/22 in which it stated that "in the main port cities of the Caribbean (Barranquilla, Cartagena and Sana Marta) there are a variety of regional and local organized crime groups." , as well as transnational criminal structures born "that dispute control of illegal economies."

Indepaz also denounced that "in all the urban centers of the region there is a presence of various structures of organized crime, common crime and structures at the service of private interests."

These groups operate under different dynamics of subcontracting and outsourcing at the service of the main structures and with a greater scope, which reinforces the notion that it is a crime of hit men.

According to Indepaz, it would be massacre number 11 so far in 2023.

In 2022, the Office of the United Nations Organization (UN) for Human Rights in Colombia verified 83 cases of massacres and 112 homicides of human rights defenders.

However, according to Indepaz, these figures rise to 179 assassinated leaders, 92 massacres, 70,267 victims of displacement; as well as 37 peace signatories were assassinated and 58 people were victims of antipersonnel mines.