PBI-Colombia accompanies the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission to La Balsita humanitarian zone

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has posted this article:

After a five-month quarantine, PBI Colombia returned to the field accompanying the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission.

The accompaniment was a 15-day journey following the footprints of memory and opening space for peasant, Afro-descendant, and indigenous communities of Urabá to meet with Truth Commissioner Patricia Tobón.

On 15 August, after weeks on adapting biosafety protocols and waiting for the specific permits to be authorized, a caravan of six vehicles reached the rural community of Caracolón, just a few kilometers from Dabeiba, Antioquia.

These cars transported Truth Commissioner Patricia Tobón, human rights defender and the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission national coordinator, Danilo Rueda, and a multidisciplinary team from the same NGO.

“It hurts to remember but it hurts even more to forget.” This phrase welcomed the delegation as it gathered in the community meeting space, giving testimony to this communities’ unshakable will to tell their story. The commissioner listened to the stories, the pain, and the hope that these brave women and men placed in her hands.

Between the 24th and 28th of November, 1997, [the Self-defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá – ACCU], with the complicity of the Colombian National Army’s 9th Brigade, murdered and disappeared more than 143 people and displaced another 400 in the rural communities of La Balsita and Antazales.

After several months in temporary shelters, the 22 families who make up the Community of Life and Work La Balsita decided to create a Humanitarian Zone in the rural area called Caracolón, five kilometeres from the county seat of Dabeiba.

Since then, they have never tired of demanding truth, justice, and reparation.

The full PBI-Colombia article with additional photos from their recent accompaniment can be found here.