Source Justice for Colombia

Community organiser and social activist Yunier Moreno was murdered at his home in the southern region of Caquetá on Sunday 8 September. Reports said that he was shot several times by attackers who then fled without being identified.

Yunier had lived in the Cartagena de Chairá zone for more than ten years, where he worked with victims of forced displacement and African-Colombian organisations. He had apparently expressed an interest in running for office as a local councillor.

The president of the Caquetá branch of the Defence of Human Rights organisation, Alejandro García, said ‘we raise our voice in protest at these latest calls to war, we ask the people of Caquetá to continue supporting the peace process and to continue working towards reconciliation. It is necessary for authorities to get immediate results in the wave of violence in this territory and the appearance of new groups at the margins of the law’.

Despite the signing of the 2016 peace agreement, Colombia is still suffering soaring levels of violence against social activists, with several people killed in the Caquetá region. Overall, more than 500 social activists have been murdered in Colombia since the agreement was signed.