“They were not guerrillas”: refugees in Colombia denounce that Maduro’s regime executed entire families and manipulated bodies

Emir Ramírez fled before his parents, brother and uncle were killed by Venezuelan soldiers. Safe from bullets, in the Colombian municipality of Arauquita, he angrily describes the photos of his murdered family, some with boots and weapons unknown to him.

“Why were they murdered?” this 26-year-old trader asks helplessly in conversation with the AFP. Ramírez unreservedly defends the innocence of his family, a Colombian-Venezuelan family. “They were not guerrillas (…) They were the most humble people in the world!”

On March 21, while they were at the family home in La VictoriaIn the border state of Apure, fighting broke out between official Venezuelan forces and guerrillas.

Despite the fact that the Colombian conflict has always burned their noses, never before have the villagers experienced anything like this, reports.

Ramírez feared for his wife’s life and fled with her by canoe down the Arauca River to the Colombian side, where he has more family and a seven-year-old son. In vain, he tried to persuade his parents to accompany him.

Some 5,000 people have also come to Arauquita to make their debut as refugees from violence., forced to live in tents in colosseums, in the midst of a pandemic.

Until April 1, the Venezuelan Defense Ministry reported nine “terrorists” and four soldiers killed, as well as more than 30 inmates.

The government of Nicolas maduro blame your neighbor for neglect the 2200 km border and allow the expansion of armed groups.

But Colombia and the Venezuelan opposition assure that Caracas intends to help dissident Colombian guerrillas with this offensive in their fight with another faction for the control of drug trafficking. Both groups were marginalized from the 2016 peace pact with extinction FARC.

Ongoing investigation

On Thursday 25, Emir’s relatives fell. And that same night, an acquaintance showed her pictures of her father’s bodies on her cell phone. Emilio (42 years old), his mother Luzdary (40), his brother Uriel (17) and his uncle Yanfran (22), dressed in military green and armed.

“The first photo I see is of my mother, with a gun lying on the ground next to her. With boots that, please !, So-called guerrilla boots “Remember unbelieving.

In the following image, his father is lying in boots, green pants and “A gun next to“. Ramírez is in despair as he moves forward in the description. “And I see another photo of my brother with a grenade next to him. He was seventeen ”.

The AFP He verified that the photographs did not appear in the files until March 26 and two of his photographers verified that they were not tampered with.

The Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek Saab, ordered an investigation into the alleged “arbitrary detention, assault and looting” during the offensive. But he did not respond to a request from AFP on the Ramírez case.

In Arauquita Emir’s version is gaining strength.

Four people who also fled and claim to have encountered them describe them as a peasant family “without stories” (disorder). Their testimonies confirm that they were special forces in black uniform who stormed La Victoria.

Manipulated bodies?

25-year-old woman who asked to be called Carla for fear of being identified, rebuilt the days leading up to the death of the Ramírez family.

“We started to feel horrible and excruciating gunshots. The children shouted, they got under the beds (…), then the helicopter came down and I could see that it was a person in uniform, ”he says.

Carla assures us that she knew the murdered family five years ago: “They were among the most humble people I could have distinguished”. Emilio “I have never seen an aggressive attitude, I have never seen him carry a weapon”.

The AFP He asked Carlos Valdes, former director of forensic medicine in Colombia, his opinion on the images of the slaughtered family. This forensic expert investigated the executions of civilians at the hands of Colombian soldiers who passed them off as guerrillas in the mega-scandal known as the “false positives”.

For the forensic analyst, the bodies were arranged so as to appear “face up, with a weapon stuck in hand” according to the same “simulation scheme”.

In the case of Uriel, the 17-year-old, a grenade is seen nearby. But a stain of blood on her side shows that “They dragged him” and that his arm “Has a fractured humerus”, probably caused in life, which prevented him from grasping the object.

The UN and various NGOs denounced serious human rights violations committed by the police in Venezuela

All four bodies were buried in Arauquita. Emir waits for the result of the autopsy, shouting: “I want justice, I want their names erased!”

(© Agence France-Presse)

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