{"id":432764,"date":"2026-08-14T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/432764\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:00:11","slug":"pbi-colombia-accompanies-the-peace-community-of-san-jose-de-apartado-alongside-dhcolombia-at-day-of-remembrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/432764\/","title":{"rendered":"PBI-Colombia accompanies the Peace Community of San Jos\u00e9 de Apartad\u00f3 alongside dhColombia at Day of Remembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 29, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted on social media<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPBI accompanies @cdpsanjose, together with @dhColombia, in a day of remembrance, dignity and the demand for justice.<\/p>\n

We accompanied the families and the community who continue to demand truth, justice and guarantees of non-repetition in the investigation into the murders of \u00c9dison David and Nallely Sep\u00falveda, which took place in the hamlet of La Esperanza in March 2024. More than two years after the events, the quest for justice remains an urgent demand.<\/p>\n

We also took part in the commemoration of the La Uni\u00f3n massacre, which took place on 8 July 2000, when six members of the Peace Community were murdered. Remembering is an act of resistance and a way of honouring those who lost their lives defending their right to live in peace.<\/p>\n

At PBI, we reaffirm our commitment to continue supporting those who keep defending human rights and building peace in their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00c9dison David and Nallely Sep\u00falveda<\/p>\n

In 2024, El Colombiano reported: \u201cNallely and Edinson were murdered on Tuesday, March 19 at noon, the news reached Apartad\u00f3 around 6 p.m. and the bodies were collected 24 hours later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At that time, El Heraldo\u00a0reported<\/a>: \u201cThe woman and the child were killed with firearms, apparently by members of a criminal group from which the Community has reported threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infobae\u00a0added<\/a>: \u201cThe region where this crime was perpetrated is mainly operated by the paramilitary Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), also known as Clan del Golfo, the country\u2019s largest criminal gang.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moira Birss, formerly of PBI-Colombia, has written in the NACLA report: \u201cPart of what makes Apartad\u00f3 and the Urab\u00e1 region so attractive to armed groups (and the economic interests that often drive them) is the area\u2019s strategic location near the Gulf of Urab\u00e1.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cThe area is also reported to contain significant coal deposits, for which the state issued an exploratory license more than 15 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

On March 13, 2024, just six days before she was killed, Nalleli Sep\u00falveda painted on a wooden gate that the Peace Community rebuilt after it was destroyed a message that reads: \u201cMining kills the land. We have the right to protect nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos by the Peace Community.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

La Uni\u00f3n massacre<\/p>\n

In the October-December 2000 issue of Peace Magazine, Erika Zarate, a former PBI volunteer from Canada,\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0about the massacre. Her article begins with a quote from Scott Pearce, another former PBI volunteer from Canada, who says:<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday we visited the village of La Uni\u00f3n. It was an emotional trip for me because it was the first time I had returned to the community since the massacre of July 8. We rode up to La Uni\u00f3n on mule. I rode with a young girl from the community, and as we proceeded slowly along the steep muddy trail she told me about her classes at school and we practiced counting. Then, without pausing, she began to talk about the massacre. Her father was one of those killed. She talked in detail about the events of July 8 in the same tone of voice she had talked about her troubles learning to read, as if it was all a strange story she couldn\u2019t quite understand\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarate adds:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis recent massacre in San Jos\u00e9, [was] allegedly instigated jointly by military and paramilitary troops\u2026 Twenty hooded men entered the village of La Uni\u00f3n and gathered together the villagers. After asking them several questions and, accusing them of \u201chelping the guerrillas,\u201d they separated the women, children, and old people and opened fire on the remaining group of men, killing six of them. They left immediately following the massacre, warning the villagers to flee the area within three weeks. According to the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace (Colombia), Amnesty International, and the World Movement Against Torture, a helicopter, probably belonging to the XVII Brigade of the Army, flew over the site of the massacre, and troops from the same Brigade were seen close by during the same time period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accompaniment<\/p>\n

The Peace Community is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.<\/p>\n

On March 23, 1997, the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado was formed. The farming community declared itself neutral in the armed conflict and rejected the presence of all the armed groups in its territory.<\/p>\n

On the twentieth anniversary of its formation in 2017, the Peace Community stated that 326 of its members had been murdered and that more than 4,000 human rights violations had been committed against the community.<\/p>\n

Peace Brigades International began accompanying the Peace Community in 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On July 29, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted on social media: \u201cPBI accompanies @cdpsanjose, together with @dhColombia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-432764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}