PBI-Colombia accompanies Justice and Peace as the remains of social leader Isaac Tuberquia are returned to his family

On March 6, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We accompany @Justiciaypazcol in the dignified delivery of the remains of Isaac Tuberquia, assassinated in 1997 by paramilitaries and the Public Force #Curvaradó

In 2020, the Tuberquia family, who had been displaced, returned to the region and began searching for their loved one.”

They add:

“In 2020 the Tuberquia accompanied by @Justiciaypazcol located where the leader was buried. This March 2, Isaac’s body was delivered to his loved ones, who remember him as a peasant leader who believed in the defense of #tierra and preservation of #life.”

El Tiempo further reports:

“Isaac Tuberquia, social leader of Carmen del Darién (Chocó), was murdered along with Julio Mendoza on August 24, 1997 in Curbaradó, in events related to the armed conflict.

At that time, the bodies had to be buried by the community in a hurry, to avoid repression by the armed and their families did not know where they were.

Over the years came the development to the region, construction of roads, companies, and lost track of the place where the bodies could be found.

Almost three decades later, the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UBPD) and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), together with the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP), the Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation to Victims and the National Institute of Legal Medicine, gave Isaac Tuberquia’s body to his relatives with dignity.

Claudia Isabel Niño Izquierdo of the UBPD, said that the dignified delivery of Tuberquia is a fundamental step in the reparation and vindication of the rights not only of the family, but also of the community affected by displacements, land dispossessions, disappearances and murders perpetrated by actors of the armed conflict in Curbaradó.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace since 1994.