🗞️ Colombia has once again been declared the world's most lethal country for environmental activists.
Human rights group Global Witness reports that 79 land and environmental activists were killed in Colombia last year; 31 victims were indigenous people, six were Afro-Colombian.
Colombia's figure is the highest for any country in a single year since Global Witness started documenting these killings in 2012. 461 activists have been killed in Colombia since that date, mostly by armed groups in rural areas.
Globally, 196 environmental activists were killed in 2023. Colombia accounts for 40% of the total; 85% took place in Latin America.
The Colombian government responded to the report, saying that it “recognises the serious situation caused by socio-ecological conflicts arising from drug trafficking, extractivist practices connected to illicit economies, and the reconfiguration of the armed conflict."
🗞️ Meanwhile, the country has seen its 47th massacre this year, according to NGO Indepaz.
Twelve people - five women and seven men - were murdered in López de Micay earlier this month, near the Pacific coast of the Cauca department.
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