Medellín, Colombia – In a landmark declaration Thursday, Colombia’s transitional justice physique, the Particular Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), acknowledged unequivocally that Medellín’s La Escombrera landfill is the positioning of a mass grave.
For many years, relations of individuals lacking from the traditionally embattled Comuna 13 district have claimed that their kin have been buried beneath refuse on the positioning.
The JEP shared its findings after a greater than six month excavation course of looking for the our bodies of individuals forcibly disappeared by safety forces and paramilitary dying squads throughout intense violence within the early 2000s.
Though investigators introduced in December that human stays had been discovered, yesterday they revealed that these corresponded to not less than 4 folks, all of whom have been victims of pressured disappearances from 2002 to 2003.
In a press launch, the JEP introduced its findings after an unlimited excavation undertaking that started in July 2024, at the side of the Lacking Individuals Search Unit (UBPD).
“In La Escombrera, residents of Comuna 13 have been killed and disappeared. This judicial fact is unequivocally supported by the proof documented by the JEP and the main points of the forensic course of,” learn the assertion.
Investigators have been additionally capable of decide the reason for dying via forensic evaluation.
“All the victims present indicators of perimortem violence, i.e., as a reason for dying, and accidents appropriate with firearm projectiles, particularly pictures fired to the pinnacle,” in response to the report.
Moreover, investigators shared that two of the deceased have been murdered on the web site the place they have been buried. Additionally they reported that not less than one physique confirmed indicators of torture earlier than dying.
Claudia, a lifelong Comuna 13 resident who didn’t wish to share her full identify out of concern, described her response to the information.
“It was extremely shifting, as a result of there are far too many souls resting there,” she instructed Latin America Reviews within the neighborhood surrounding La Escombrera.
This reporter was allowed entry to the excavation web site on Thursday. All through the go to, landfill staff continued to function as regular, with vehicles ferrying rubble, dust and waste up the mountain.
Simply six months in the past, in response to JEP officers who organized the go to, a hill of dust and rubble had stood the place right now lies an open excavation pit, pockmarked by sticks coloured in a code utilized by investigators.
On a close-by ridge, a number of pop-up canopies sheltered law enforcement officials, forensic scientists, and members of the JEP from the afternoon solar whereas they meticulously looked for the lacking from some 20 years in the past.
The crew defined how the operation, which excavated over 37,000 cubic meters of soil and rubble from the landfill, was difficult by the chance of damaging vital proof.
“The forensic course of carried out in La Escombrera was akin to the work carried out at against the law scene,” wrote investigators of their report.
They described how all through the excavation, the crew used diggers to scrape the soil floor, inspecting every layer for indicators of human stays.
Along with the gradual, painstaking means of excavating the positioning, the preparation for the dig was removed from easy.
The primary excavation of La Escombrera started in 2015 however was rapidly paused. Then, in 2019, the JEP started investigating paperwork and witness testimonies to assist find potential burial websites.
In 2020, it concluded that there was ample proof to look La Escombrera for our bodies.
The excavation starting in July 2024 got here after years of preparation, which included topographical, geological, and geographical research alongside using satellite tv for pc and aerial imagery.
These strategies helped to outline the search space, which in the end coated 6,800 sq. meters of land. Solely a fraction of this zone has been excavated to date.
Yesterday’s announcement marks a milestone for a lot of victims’ households, who for many years have implored the federal government to seek for our bodies within the dump following state-sanctioned killings and disappearances within the early 2000s.
However tensions persist between members of the local people and the federal government.
A graffiti tribute to the moms of victims that learn “the moms are proper” was painted over by native authorities, inflicting uproar.
However yesterday’s assertion nonetheless offers them one thing to carry onto. There’s now an official, authorities file that proves that they have been proper about La Escombrera.
Within the JEP’s assertion, the justice physique declared that “any try and solid doubt on [these findings] or recommend in any other case is, along with being unfounded, an offense to the victims and, above all, socially immoral.”
