 |
| Arhuaco man
© Survival |
Two Arhuaco children have been killed after playing with unexploded shells left by the Colombian army.
The bodies of Jorge Luis Izquierdo Torres (aged 14) and his younger
sister Zenaida Estela Izquierdo Torres (aged 10) were found by their
parents after hearing an explosion, in the community of Yeiwin. The
army had just left the community after staying there for two days.
The Arhuaco live with two other tribes, the Kogi and Arsario, on the
slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia. Since
the 1980s the Sierra Nevada has been a site of frequent conflict
between the army, left-wing guerrillas and paramilitary armies, and
many Indians have been killed in the crossfire.
No-one has been convicted in connection with any of the numerous
killings of the Sierra Nevada Indians, the most shocking of which was
the 1990 assassinations of the senior Arhuaco leaders Luis Napoleón
Torres, Hugues Chaparro and Angel María Torres.
The Arhuaco and the neighbouring tribes see themselves as the older
brothers' of humanity, referring to all other peoples as the younger
brothers'
