The Colombian insurgent group National Liberation Army (ELN) lifted the armed strike it maintained in the department of Chocó, which, they maintain, was in response “to the incursions of paramilitarism, supported by military forces” in the region.
In a statement published this Monday morning on the social network X, the combatants denounced that the paramilitaries were acting against the Afro and indigenous communities in the San Juan region.
They also criticized the coverage of the Colombian media in relation to the conflict in Chocó, describing it as “subjective.”
“It is paradoxical that some national media arrive in a comfortable and privileged manner in military helicopters to villages like San Miguel on the banks of the San Juan River, to show the poverty of its inhabitants, the lack of food and the impossibility of moving as an effect of the beloved unemployment, but do not talk about state abandonment, extreme poverty, hunger due to unemployment and lack of economic resources to develop productive projects,” they insist in the writing.
They also denounce that hunger in the department of Chocó is critical and permanent, while the deaths of children due to malnutrition and curable diseases is constant.
“The impossibility of moving them (is) due to the lack of roads or because they simply cannot afford to pay for a boat ticket, buy an outboard motor or stock up on gasoline to travel along the river, is the daily routine that their children face. inhabitants,” they claim.
Here is the full statement:
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2024-08-21 06:20:53
