One dead and 40 injured, violent protests shake Colombian city Popayán

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Violence raged Friday and early Saturday morning in the Colombian city of Popayán, capital of the troubled Department of Cauca (southwest), where a police stun grenade reportedly killed a young man, and at least 40 people were injured.

“We reject the violent death of Sebastián Quintero Munera, a student of Computer Engineering at the Institución Universitaria Colegio Mayor del Cauca,” said the Mayor’s Office of Popayán in a statement, in which it confirmed the number of victims and called for “an end to the violence we are experiencing today.”

The protests in that city were unleashed after the death of a minor who denounced touching and sexual abuse in a police station in the city where she was held.

The minor’s grandmother reported that when she returned from the Immediate Reaction Unit (URI), where she was taken, she came back with bruises on her body and told her that she had been groped.

The minor appeared unconscious in her home on Thursday and was taken to a hospital, where they could not resuscitate her.

“We reject (…) the repudiatory facts surrounding the tragic death of (the minor). We reiterate all our solidarity with her parents, family, and friends, for these painful facts, which should never have happened”, stated the Mayor’s Office.

VIOLENCE ON BOTH SIDES

During the day in Popayán, there were difficult moments due to the onslaught of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) of the Police, which even ran over demonstrators with a tankette, as well as the burning of the URI where the minor was allegedly abused and of the headquarters of the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The Unit for the Search for Missing Persons (UBPD), created by the signing of the peace agreement between the Government and the FARC, made an “urgent call” to the authorities to “protect the headquarters of Medicina Legal in Popayán, which contributes to the humanitarian objective of the search”.

“We demand the National Government and local authorities to take urgent and effective actions to stop the acts of violence that allow the protection of the bodies of unidentified or undelivered persons that would correspond to missing persons,” expressed the UBPD on Twitter.

In the same line, the representative in Colombia of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Juliette de Rivero, stated that “it is urgent to protect forensic evidence found there, which is fundamental for the search of missing persons, truth, justice and reparation for the victims”.

Given this situation, President Iván Duque sent the ministers of Defense, Diego Molano, and the Interior, Daniel Palacios, to lead the “reestablishment of public order in the city”.

“We are in Popayán with the Minister of the Interior, Daniel Palacios, the military leadership, and the Police to address the public order situation. Hand in hand with the local authorities, we will restore order, after the vandalism acts occurred last night by criminal hands”, said Molano in social networks.

In Popayán, the mob also burned a car, made graffiti on the walls, and broke windows of local government buildings, which were white like most of the buildings.

PROTESTS IN COLOMBIA

The protests in the country, which began last April 28 against the now-defunct tax reform, have already left at least 42 fatalities (41 civilians and one policeman), as reported to the Ombudsman’s Office.

The social discontent seeks that the Government offers free education for university students, more job opportunities, access to health care, and an end to police violence.