So they demolished the Monaco building, which was the fortress of Pablo Escobar

Several seconds were needed to reduce the Monegasque building, refuge of the Medellín cartel and the home of the drug dealer Pablo Escobar, between 1986 and 1989. Twenty-six years after his death in 1993, a cloud of dust had been swept away. this Friday. symbol of the bloody past of a city that, in 1991, was considered the most violent in the world.

At the site of the almost ruined building, a park dedicated to the victims of narcoterrorism will be built, which has caused more than 46,000 homicides in just a decade. With this act, the Mayor's Office of Medellin intends to close the wounds and write a new chapter on the historical memory of the city.

To shoot down the building, one of the places visited in the "narcotours" and photographed countless times by curious tourists, all the houses were evacuated within a radius of 100 meters around the perimeter, which involves l & # 39; expulsion of 1500 people The act was open to the public.

"It is not a matter of erasing the story, but to start counting in the honor of our true heroes, the victims, the innocent," said the mayor of Medellín in a tweet.

Here you can not continue to place those who have been aggressors at the top, here's what you need to show, that's our story. Do not deny it and do not erase it so that it does not happen again, "said Federico Gutiérrez, Mayor of Medellín, on the website of the institution.

In the act that preceded the collapse of the eight-story building, Gutiérrez spoke of the need to "break the silence" and "heal the story".

"In the cemeteries, we mourn death, here life is in the honor," said the mayor in front of the participants.

"Medellín embraces its history"

As part of the Medellin initiative that embraces its history, the town hall has launched a series of activities, including the so-called memory and transformation tour, through which unpublished documents and six short films, among others, want to tell the city's history of the eyes of the victims.

"The implosion of the Monaco building means the defeat of the culture of illegality and the triumph of the culture of legality, which means that the story will not be written in according to the authors, but that it is written acknowledging the victims, "expressed the President of Colombia, Iván Duque.

The Monaco building, located in the luxurious area of ​​Poblado, was the target in 1988 of the first car bomb detonated in the country by the cartel of Cali. The attack, which sparked a fierce war between cartels, took place while Escobar and his family were inside the building. The Corporal's daughter lost part of her hearing.