Another ten indigenous Awá were massacred in south east Colombia
Wednesday, indigenous and human rights groups in the region say.
Earlier this week 17 Awá were murdered, allegedly by FARC guerrillas.
“We received information from local authorities that yesterday morning ten people, who had been displaced because of the previous massacre, were assassinated,” leader of the National Indigenous organization of Colombia Luis Evelis Andrade told newspaper El País.
Antonio Navarro, governor of Nariño where the massacres took place, received similar reports and said Awá representatives told him “that early Wednesday morning they killed ten people.”
The massacre allegedly took place near Ricaurte.
According to Navarro, the indigenous say the FARC committed this massacre too.
It is the second time within a week the guerrillas are accused of murdering indigenous tribes on the suspicion that the Awá are army informants.
In reaction, Defense minister Juan Manuel Santos called on Nariño indigenous to collaborate with authorities to solve the massacres and denounced their lack of cooperation with the State.
“The attitude of the indigenous community is to not collaborate with the authorities that are trying to go there to recover the bodies (…) We will try to convince them that the Democratic Security policy is for all Colombians and that if they do not collaborate we are not able to defend their rights.”
According to some reports, more than 5,000 Awá indigenous have been displaced in Nariño because of the violence torturing the remote region.
