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Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
Wed Feb 24, 2021, 12:53 AM Feb 2021

Colombia's 'capital of horror' despairs amid new wave of gang violence


President urged to act as rival gangs use death and intimidation in their brutal turf war for control of Buenaventura

Steven Grattan in Buenaventura
Tue 23 Feb 2021 05.37 EST

Clenching a fist, Tatiana Angulo talked about the killings of her neighbours’ two teenage sons.

“They got mixed up in it,” said Angulo, 34, who runs a peace theatre group, reenacting the stories of local victims. “We used to be able to hang out and have a laugh on the street corners, but now that’s where the killings happen.”

The port city of Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, has long been infamous as the “capital of horror”, with a history of brutal killings and “casas de pique”, or chop houses, where bodies were dismembered and dumped in the sea.

. . .

Many Bonaverenses are scared to talk about what is happening for fear of reprisal. They say armed groups are active on social media and keep track of those who speak out against them. The Guardian spoke to more than 20 residents and to civic organisations about the violence. All said it was the worst they had experienced since the 2016 peace deal, which many hoped would bring an end to decades-long conflict across Colombia.

. . .

The Puente Nayero humanitarian space in the La Playita neighbourhood is an impoverished area of about 500 families, atop a former landfill. Raw sewage runs beneath wooden houses on stilts. This neighbourhood used to be the site of the most terrifying legacy of the city, the chop houses, where armed groups would torture and dismember their victims. Some of those we interviewed say chop houses still operate in other parts of the city, just not as openly as before, and limbs are left in the streets as a warning.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/colombias-capital-of-horror-despairs-amid-renewed-gang-violence-buenaventura



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