Insecurity continues in Bajo Cauca Antioquia: in the early hours of today, social leader Javier Enrique Tapias Tabares, 56, and a woman identified as Irma Restrepo, 36. were killed in the sector of El Doce, in the municipality of Tarazá.

Tapias, a member of the Community Action Board of the village of Ocabajo, was travelling with the woman on a motorcycle, when they were approached by several men, who drew their weapons and fired repeatedly at them mercilessly.

The human rights delegate of the NGO Nodo Antioquia, Manuel Atehortua, said that Tapias had not reported death threats, so they presume that his murder was linked to the social work he carried out in the region.

With this latest killing the number of social leaders who have been killed in this region of the country so far this year has reached a total of 32. The authorities are conducting investigations to clarify the real motives and perpetrators of the double crime. According to the NGO, the attacks against this community in the department of Antioquia are mostly perpetrated by the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Los Caparrapos and criminal gangs who are active in the area.