Violence has not let up this year in Colombia where the rates of murders of human rights defenders, signatories of the peace agreement, forced displacements or massacres have remained high, despite the fact that in some cases there have been slight decreases.

This is stated by the NGO Institute of Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz) in the document “Violence in Colombia report 2023”, published this Friday, in which it concludes that this panorama makes it necessary to take “measures to confront the complex situation of leaders, social leaders and human rights defenders”.

Between January 1 and December 28 of this year, 188 people who were developing some type of leadership or defense of human rights in Colombia were murdered, according to the report. “Regarding 2022 and until the date of issuance of this report, one more leader has been murdered than the previous year (…) On average, 15 leaders or human rights defenders were murdered per month.”

Murders of peace signers

The report also details that this year 44 signatories of the Government's peace agreement with the former FARC guerrilla were murdered, six less than in 2022 when there were 50 murders. “During 2023 the average number of murders of signatories of the agreement per month was three, while in 2022 it was four,” Indepaz added.

This year, 94 massacres were perpetrated, the same number as in 2022. However, the victims of these crimes were 343 last year, while this year there were 335.

“In the case of massacres, compared to the year 2022, the average number of massacres committed per month remains at eight, with January and November 2023 being the months with the highest number of cases with twelve and eleven respectively,” the report noted.

Regarding the victims of antipersonnel mines, this year 55 people, six of them minors, were affected by the explosion of these devices, mostly in the department of Nariño, bordering Ecuador.