Colombia: Another Ex-FARC Member Killed

TeleSUR. March 12, 2020

Edwin de Jesús Carrascal, a former member of the Colombian Alternative Revolutionary Force of the Common’s party (FARC), was assassinated on Tuesday in Coloso, a community in Sucre’s department.

The ex-combatant was at his residence when two armed men knocked at his door. The two hitmen asked for Carrascal and shot him after identifying him. According to other ex-guerrilla members, Carracascal died due to the severity of the wounds. As local media stated , the killers ran away in motorcycles but left the guns behind them.

FARC senator Sandra Ramirez requested the government take effective measures to guarantee the safety of the ex-guerillas.. “We demand to stop the extermination, we demand guarantees,” said Ramirez on her Twitter profile. The party is convoking Colombian people to a public demonstration to demand peace and avoid the killing.

On March.6, Astrid Conde, a former guerrilla fighter in Colombia, was also shot dead in Bogotá. FARC denounced the growing violence against its former members, a series of violent acts that the group qualified as executions.

UN warned on December 31 of last year that at least 77 ex-guerrillas members were killed in Colombia during 2019, reported 14 disappearances and 29 attempted killings. Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapport, highlighted the impunity of the murders of social leaders and the lack of preventive administrative measures against the crimes.

Jesus Carrascal was the 16th signer of the Peace Agreements killed in 2020. The FARC requested to the Colombian government for an efficient investigation to find justice for the ex-combatant.