Stephen Gill

The United Nations on Monday condemned the assassination of the sixth indigenous guard in just weeks in the troubled southwest of Colombia. Toribio Canas, 53, was gunned down at his home in the Toribio municipality of the Cauca province on Sunday. The indigenous guard became the latest victim of devastating violence aimed at indigenous leaders and human rights defenders in the province.

Colombia’s war crimes tribunal is set to pursue a case relating to forced disappearances at the site of the country’s largest hydroelectric dam project run by Medellin‘s utilities company EPM. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), is demanding that EPM, the Socya Foundation and Antioquia governor Luis Perez, deliver information about the possible whereabouts of suspected burial sites of victims of the armed conflict within two weeks.

Colombian police are investigating claims that four journalists in the northern Caribbean region received death threats following their denunciation of corruption in the area. The reporters who included two from the regional El Heraldo newspaper, a member of the press office of the mayor of Sincelejo and an independent journalist were subjected to the threats signed by “Frente Sucre Sin Sapos” ordering them to leave the Sucre province within three days.