At approximately 10:00 pm, on the evening of Sunday 5 January 2020, a group of heavily armed men arrived in the Agua Blanca Tribugá indigenous community, in the municipality of Nuquí-Choco. In the ensuing violence Anuar Rojas Isaramá, a member of the Embera Dobida People, who worked as a farmer and Indigenous Guard in this reservation, was brutally murdered. According to witnesses; the gunmen dragged Anuar out of his house and shot him in front of the community.
It was three days before the community was contacted by the authorities.
After this, around 23 families, consisting of 100 people, including women, girls, children and elderly Emberas, fled the area, seeking shelter in the regional capital. In recent months there has been a series of killings of members of the indigenous guard whose role is to patrol the borders of the indigenous reserve and prevent the infiltration of land grabbers and illegal loggers.
The attack on the Agua Blanca Tribugá indigenous community was supposedly carried out by members of the ELN. The state of Choco has been the scene of ongoing conflict between various armed groups. Apart from ongoing random violence the indigenous peoples also suffer from the deployment of landmines which limit the areas where they can sow crops or hunt. The result of this is that there is a problem of hunger and malnutrition, especially among children.
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