José Eduardo Tumbó, a 34-year-old community leader, was shot dead on Saturday, August 3, 2019 in the rural area of El Jaguar, Corinto, Cauca. He was shot four times by unidentified men and died instantly.

José Eduardo was an active member of the community organisation Junta de Acción Comunal of vereda El Vergel, and was part of the peasant organisation in the Caloto municipality, Asociación de Trabajadores Pro-Constitución Zonas de Reserva Campesina. As a peasant leader, José Eduardo participated in the mobilizations of March 2019, when various peasant and indigenous committees blocked the main road in the southeast of Colombia, via Panamericana in demand of their land rights.

Just two days prior to José Eduardo’s murder, an indigenous leader of Cauca, Gersain Yatacué was shot dead when he was on his way home after providing support to technical staff that provide advice on economic and food production issues as part of the Nasa Project, which promotes the production initiatives of three indigenous councils (the San Francisco, Toribío, and Tacueyó reserves) that have decided to work under a collective model to produce fruit, milk, fish, coffee and rice.