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Five small farmers were assassinated in a rural zone of the north-western Antioquia province, local media reported on Saturday.
Four of them belonged to the same family – a couple and their 19-year-old and 17 year-old children, while the fifth person seemed to be working on the same property where the murders occurred.
Armed men arrived at the property located two hours away from the old town of Valdivia, confirmed Valdivia's mayor Javier Cardenas to local media. A campesino who was passing by the property alerted the authorities. The crime allegedly occurred shortly before mid-day on Friday.
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The Antioquia region has been one of the most affected by the Colombian armed conflict, as campesinos are often caught between the confrontations between drug-trafficking, paramilitary and guerrilla groups fighting for the control of natural resources and illicit cultures, especially cocaine.
On Thursday, the massacre of El Aro, where 15 campesinos were murdered in 1997 also in Antioquia province, re-emerged in the news as a Medellin court ordered to investigate former President Alvaro Uribe over his potential involvement through his alleged connections with paramilitary groups.
In Colombia, the drive for land access in poor rural areas combined with the lucrative production and trade of cocaine has resulted in the assassination and displacement of millions of campesinos in the past half-century – seven millions according to a recent estimate.
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