On July 29, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted on social media:
“PBI accompanies @cdpsanjose, together with @dhColombia, in a day of remembrance, dignity and the demand for justice.
We accompanied the families and the community who continue to demand truth, justice and guarantees of non-repetition in the investigation into the murders of Édison David and Nallely Sepúlveda, which took place in the hamlet of La Esperanza in March 2024. More than two years after the events, the quest for justice remains an urgent demand.
We also took part in the commemoration of the La Unión massacre, which took place on 8 July 2000, when six members of the Peace Community were murdered. Remembering is an act of resistance and a way of honouring those who lost their lives defending their right to live in peace.
At PBI, we reaffirm our commitment to continue supporting those who keep defending human rights and building peace in their communities.”
Édison David and Nallely Sepúlveda
In 2024, El Colombiano reported: “Nallely and Edinson were murdered on Tuesday, March 19 at noon, the news reached Apartadó around 6 p.m. and the bodies were collected 24 hours later.”
At that time, El Heraldo reported: “The woman and the child were killed with firearms, apparently by members of a criminal group from which the Community has reported threats.”
Infobae added: “The region where this crime was perpetrated is mainly operated by the paramilitary Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), also known as Clan del Golfo, the country’s largest criminal gang.”
Moira Birss, formerly of PBI-Colombia, has written in the NACLA report: “Part of what makes Apartadó and the Urabá region so attractive to armed groups (and the economic interests that often drive them) is the area’s strategic location near the Gulf of Urabá.”
She adds: “The area is also reported to contain significant coal deposits, for which the state issued an exploratory license more than 15 years ago.”
On March 13, 2024, just six days before she was killed, Nalleli Sepúlveda painted on a wooden gate that the Peace Community rebuilt after it was destroyed a message that reads: “Mining kills the land. We have the right to protect nature.”
Photos by the Peace Community.
La Unión massacre
In the October-December 2000 issue of Peace Magazine, Erika Zarate, a former PBI volunteer from Canada, writes about the massacre. Her article begins with a quote from Scott Pearce, another former PBI volunteer from Canada, who says:
“Yesterday we visited the village of La Unión. It was an emotional trip for me because it was the first time I had returned to the community since the massacre of July 8. We rode up to La Unión on mule. I rode with a young girl from the community, and as we proceeded slowly along the steep muddy trail she told me about her classes at school and we practiced counting. Then, without pausing, she began to talk about the massacre. Her father was one of those killed. She talked in detail about the events of July 8 in the same tone of voice she had talked about her troubles learning to read, as if it was all a strange story she couldn’t quite understand…”
Zarate adds:
“This recent massacre in San José, [was] allegedly instigated jointly by military and paramilitary troops… Twenty hooded men entered the village of La Unión and gathered together the villagers. After asking them several questions and, accusing them of “helping the guerrillas,” they separated the women, children, and old people and opened fire on the remaining group of men, killing six of them. They left immediately following the massacre, warning the villagers to flee the area within three weeks. According to the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace (Colombia), Amnesty International, and the World Movement Against Torture, a helicopter, probably belonging to the XVII Brigade of the Army, flew over the site of the massacre, and troops from the same Brigade were seen close by during the same time period.”
Accompaniment
The Peace Community is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.
On March 23, 1997, the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado was formed. The farming community declared itself neutral in the armed conflict and rejected the presence of all the armed groups in its territory.
On the twentieth anniversary of its formation in 2017, the Peace Community stated that 326 of its members had been murdered and that more than 4,000 human rights violations had been committed against the community.
Peace Brigades International began accompanying the Peace Community in 1999.
