Colombia recovers bodies:
Ethiopians rally in solidarity with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Meskel Square in the capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on June 23. (AP)
The UN report cited “credible, shocking” accounts of extrajudicial killings of young men during crime-fighting operations in poor neighbourhoods conducted without arrest warrants. Security forces would tamper with the scene so that there appeared to have been an exchange of fire, it said.
There was no immediate response from the government of President Nicolas Maduro to the report.
Critics say Maduro has used increasingly authoritarian tactics as the OPEC nation’s economy has spiralled deeper into recession and hyperinflation, fuelling discontent and prompting hundreds of thousands to emigrate in the past year.
About 125 people died in anti-government protests last year.
Security forces were allegedly responsible for killing at least 46 of them, UN rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a news briefing, adding: “Evidence has reportedly disappeared from case files.” (RTRS) jails in Managua and the flashpoint opposition bastion of Masaya in the first release of prisoners since the intervention of the bishops.
The clergy were tasked last month with mediating an increasingly bloody confrontation between the opposition and government.
The bishops traveled to the besieged opposition city of Masaya on Thursday “to avoid another massacre” as police and paramilitaries loyal to President Daniel Ortega prepared an assault on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city. (AFP)
Colombian authorities have recovered what they believe to be the bodies of a three-man Ecuadoran press team kidnapped and killed on the two countries’ border.
President Juan Manuel Santos said the bodies located by police in the country’s south could be those of journalist Javier Ortega, 32, photographer Paul Rivas, 45, and their 60-year-old driver Efrain Segarra. “I reiterate my condolences to the families and my repudiation of this heinous crime,” said Santos.
Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said Thursday that four bodies had been recovered, and that forensic police in Cali were expected to identify them Friday.
The three men, who worked for Ecuador’s influential El Comercio newspaper, were kidnapped while covering a story on violence along the border, prompting both countries to send troops to hunt down the perpetrators.
Walter Patricio Artizala, better known as “Guacho,” served as a rebel for 15 years in the now-defunct FARC movement and heads the Oliver Sinisterra Front, a group that kidnapped the men on March 26 in the Mataje area.
Experts say the northwestern border zone, which is covered with dense jungle and crisscrossed by rivers leading into the Pacific, has become a paradise for drug traffickers. (AFP)