“With the accompaniment of the Rapid Deployment Force #1 of the National Army, the Attorney General’s Office recovered the bodies of eight social and religious leaders found in a mass grave in a rural area of (the municipality of) Calamar”, the Prosecutor’s Office detailed in a statement.
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These people were allegedly summoned by members of the Armando Ríos front of the FARC dissidents “for suspicion of the possible creation of a cell” of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla in the area, the information added. The bodies of the eight victims were found through the activation of urgent search mechanisms last April following the report that accounted for the summons of these people by the ‘Armando Ríos’ first front of the Central General Staff (EMC), the largest dissident group of the FARC, which commits crimes in the area. According to the preliminary recognition by family members, these are Jesús Valero, Carlos Valero, Marivel Silva, Isaid Gómez, Maryuri Hérnandez, Óscar Hernández, James Caicedo, and Nixon Peñaloza Chacón. The investigation established that on April 4, 2025, two of the victims were summoned by members of the aforementioned armed group and, three days later, the remaining six people were also called, in order to be “interrogated” about the possible presence or creation of another criminal group”, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. Days later, the eight people were allegedly moved to an abandoned lot. On April 14th, the authorities of Calamar confirmed the disappearance of eight people in the hamlet of Agua Bonita Media. The Prosecutor’s investigation also indicated that the “perpetrators apparently received the order from the inner circle of alias ‘Iván Mordisco’ (EMC leader) to prevent the possible formation of an ELN cell in the region.”
