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MASSACRES of civilians almost doubled in Colombia last year and killings of activists have risen sharply, the UN has warned.
Juliette de Rivero, the Colombia representative for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it had registered 76 massacres – defined as events in which three or more civilians are executed at once – last year.
It is the highest figure since 2016, when a ceasefire was agreed between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) after four decades of civil war.
The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva tomorrow.
Despite the ceasefire, hundreds of former Farc guerillas have been murdered by paramilitaries as they seek to enter constitutional politics, while killings of trade unionists and human-rights activists continue.
The UN report says such killings are up 23 per cent on 2019, with 133 activists murdered.
Ms Rivero said Bogota needed to put “the peace deal at the centre of the government response” — a criticism of efforts by the Ivan Duque administration to renege on the deal, including by claiming that it is soft on former rebels.
