Video footage made public on 27 November appears to depict a group of religious and social leaders being transported to a location to which they were summoned by an illegal armed group in Calamar Municipality, Guaviare Department, Colombia, shortly before they are believed to have been killed.
Isaíd Gómez, Maribel Silva, Carlos Valero, James Caicedo, Jesús Valero, Maryuri Hernández, Nixon Peñalosa and Oscar García – all residents of the hamlet of Agua Bonita in Pueblo Seco, Calamar – obeyed personal summonses issued by an illegal armed group believed to be a breakaway faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on 4 and 5 April 2025.
When the individuals failed to return home, family members sought out representatives of the group, which initially denied that any summonses had been issued, and later indirectly warned them that they should stop looking and ‘consider the case to be closed.’ Three months later, on 1 July, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office reported that the eight individuals’ bodies had been discovered in a mass grave in a rural part of the municipality.
On 25 November a prosecutor from the Specialised Directorate against Criminal Organisations (DECOC) charged an alleged FARC dissident Excehomo Pabón Amaya – aka ‘Morocho’ – with the crimes of aggravated conspiracy, forced disappearance, homicide and illegal possession of weapons over his involvement in the killings, citing video footage found on Mr Pabón Amaya’s mobile phone which appears to depict members of the group being transported along the Itilla River to the La Ojona farm near to where their bodies were discovered.
The prosecutor’s office claimed that the group was initially ‘detained by armed men who photographed them and questioned them because they mistakenly believed they belonged to the ELN [the National Liberation Army, which is currently the largest guerrilla group in the country].’ After this, the investigation established that the individuals were tied up with ropes and chains and forcibly taken to a jungle area ‘where they were attacked at point-blank range with firearms and buried to prevent them from being found.’
CSW’s Director of Advocacy and Americas Team Leader Anna Lee Stangl said: ‘CSW welcomes progress in the investigation into the killings of eight religious and social leaders in Calamar earlier this year. We applaud the arrest of Excehomo Pabón Amaya, but emphasise that he did not act alone and therefore urge the Colombia government to continue to investigate this horrific crime until it is certain that all those who had a part have been held to account. We also note that it seems unlikely that a group of church leaders would be mistaken for members of the ELN which has a long history of targeting Protestant churches. The victims, in fact, were part of a group that had fled persecution by the ELN in Arauca before being displaced to Calamar, Guaviare.
‘At the same time, the FARC both before the 2016 peace agreement, and its post 2016 dissident movements, which tend to be even more hardline, has long imposed harsh restrictions on FoRB in the parts of Guaviare where it maintains a presence and is responsible for the targeted assassinations of hundreds of church leaders. We continue to call on the authorities to take this history into consideration as they continue to investigate this case and to pursue similar efforts to provide answers as to the whereabouts of countless others who have been forcibly disappeared by illegal armed or criminal groups over the course of the country’s decades-long internal conflict.’
In a separate development, on 28 November, Colombia’s Ombudsman Office held a meeting with representatives from 21 churches and religious organisations aimed at identifying a ‘roadmap’ for providing recognition and reparation to churches and church members who have been victims of violence within the context of Colombia’s armed conflict.
The meeting concluded with an agreement to develop a joint work plan, strengthen human rights training, and establish mechanisms for reporting and monitoring impacts, with a view to a second meeting in 2026.
Anna Lee Stangl added: ‘CSW welcomes this recent initiative from the Colombian government to engage with the religious sector over the adverse and specific impacts of often targeted, conflict-related violence that this sector has suffered for decades. We call on the government to take forward the commitments made in this meeting as a matter of urgency, and to restore special protections to religious leaders under Decree 1066 of 2015.’