They denounce the disappearance of 87 people during the …

Amid massive protests against the government of Colombian President Iván Duque, the Ombudsman’s office reported receiving complaints from 87 missing people. The protests began last Wednesday and already have a sad toll of 19 dead and more than 800 injured, a situation that has put Colombia in the crosshairs of international organizations for recurrent human rights violations and abuses. security forces. Defense Minister Diego Molano justified the military presence on Tuesday in the streets of the country to keep that with her “Exceptional” support is given to the police in the face of “the terrorist threat”.

“The Ombudsman’s office registered complaints corresponding to the alleged disappearances during the social demonstration organized on April 28 and transferred this information to the Commission for the Search of Missing Persons, “the independent body reported. The entity shared the full list of 87 people who, according to complaints, are still missing.

At least 35 of them went missing in Cali, capital of the Valle del Cauca department, epicenter of events, and the neighboring Palmira, Southwest region where the highest number of deaths was also recorded during the protests. There are also missing persons in Bogotá, Barranquilla and Medellín, as well as in the department of Quindío, located in the coffee zone in the center of the country.

Although the Office of the Ombudsman has confirmed the deaths of 19 people during the mobilizations, the Ministry of Defense avoids referring to the victims. Minister Diego Molano confined himself to assuring that “there have been attacks against members of the public forces, police stations, vehicles, blockades and other acts of violence affecting the municipalities of the country” .

Molano also stressed, without any proof, that these are “acts organized and financed by dissidents of the FARC and the ELN”.. He clarified the case of the city of Cali, where “there is a group of these criminal organizations that seek to mimic and have carried out these acts of vandalism”.

Precisely Monday evening, Cali was the scene of agitated protests which, according to data from the city’s mayor’s office, left five dead and thirty injured at the hands of the police. same Officials from the Ombudsman’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office said they had been threatened at gunpoint by agents of the Mobile Riot Squad (Esmad) while observing law enforcement protocols at a local police station.

This Tuesday, United Nations Human Rights Office denounced from Geneva that Colombian security forces used “excessive force” against protesters. Security forces “used live ammunition, beat demonstrators, and there were arrests in the context of a tense and unstable situation in which some participants in the demonstrations were also violent, ”added Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the office headed by High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.

The protests will continue this Wednesday, according to the call of the National Unemployment Committee, who announced that despite President Duque announcing the withdrawal of the tax bill, “the people, in the street, demand much more than the withdrawal of the tax reform”. Las peticiones ahora pasan por el retiro de un proyecto de ley que busca privatizar la salud, el fortalecimiento del plan de vacunación contra el coronavirus, la creación de una renta básica, la defensa de la producción nacional agropecuaria y el apoyaso empres a las peque, among others.