Armed Men in Colombia Kill 8th FARC Member, Raising Alarm

Jesus Adan Mazo, or “Molina,” has been killed after being attacked and shot by a group of armed men in the town of Ituango, near a FARC concentration zone.

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Mazo — whose involvement in the peace process between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was pivotal to the signing of the peace agreement — was shot at 1:00 am Monday morning while residing in a house near the Santa Lucia school in Antioquia.

“According to the neighbors, the armed men removed him from the house and shot him three times, enough to kill him. This is the second ex-combatant of the FARC that is assassinated in Ituango,” said a statement from the FARC zone in Ituango.

“The death of Molina happens just a day before the end of the Transitional Standardization Zones and the beginning of the Territories of Training and Reincorporation, which makes the residents of the concentration zones fearful since they consider this 'a very clear and fatal message for the process'," the statement continued.

According to the FARC report, the man was killed because of his involvement in the rebel group as the leader of the 18th Front that operated in Antioquia.

Since the signing of the peace agreement in November, the violence by right-wing and paramilitary groups against the FARC has killed seven members along with 10 family members.

The demobilization of the FARC has led to the infiltration of right-wing paramilitaries in the void left in rural Colombia. Due to this, the numbers of displaced people has grown.

The U.N. drew attention to 92 individuals who have moved to relatives’ and friends’ homes in the town of Barbacoas after paramilitaries invaded the area on Aug. 8 and were subjected to “intimidation and threat by members of an armed group” as the international organization described them, who remain in the area.

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The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that another group of families may also be affected by the mobility restrictions due to the presence of the armed group.

So far the government of Nariño, the department where Barbacoas is located, stated it would deliver eight days worth of food to the displaced families from Aug. 15 to 22. The mayor of Barbacoas has also donated three days worth of provisions to the victims.

A report published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center and Norwegian Refugee Council in May has found that Colombia has the largest internally displaced population in the world.

The report, "Global Report on Global Displacement," outlined that with an internally displaced population of approximately 7.2 million people, Colombia leads other war-torn countries such as Syria (6,300,000 displaced) and Iraq (3,000,000 displaced).