The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation has reported a wave of recent murders in the municipalities of Arauquita, Tame and Saravena in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca. On July 27 in Tame, meat vendor Alberto Tovar Trujillo was murdered in the community of Alto Cauca and Omar Castaneda was murdered in the village of Botalon. On July 28, Euclides Galvis Moreno and Jose Ananias Duran Moncada were murdered in the community of Santa Clara in Arauquita. On July 30, Pedro Jaimes Rodriguez died in the hospital, a day after being wounded with a knife in Saravena municipality. Also on July 30, Floiran Cuervo Monsalve was murdered in the community of Puerto Nidia in Fortul municipality. Jose Calderon, a medical assistant at the San Ricardo Pampuri hospital in Saravena, was murdered on July 31. The authors and motives are unknown for all of these killings. (Adital, Aug. 4) The murders take place as the National Army carries out a massive military operation in the rural areas of Arauca department, with abuses against the civilian campesino population. The military operation began in early July in Tame and has spread to Fortul, Saravena, Arauquita and the departmental capital, Arauca. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Aug. 1)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Aug. 6

See our last post on the Colombia, and our last report on the rural human rights crisis.