Vijagual lies a little over 70 kilometres southwest of the region of Catatumbo in neighbouring Norte de Santander Department. The area has a significant presence of illegal armed and criminal groups, with the ELN battling for territory and influence with organised criminal groups as well as breakaway factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), another guerilla group which signed a peace agreement with the government in 2016. Catatumbo has long been notorious for the presence of illegal armed groups and illicit activities and, over the past two years, it has been characterised by extreme violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There has been a direct impact on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). These include restrictions on holding religious services, forced closures of churches, threats, the forced displacement of pastors and priests, and economic pressure. Religious leaders have been held against their will, including 62-year-ol Pablo Hel\u00ed Rizo Jim\u00e9nez<\/a>, a minister with the World Missionary Movement who was kidnapped by armed men in a rural part of \u200b\u200bOca\u00f1a, Norte de Santander on 18 October 2025. Rizo Jim\u00e9nez was held for over a month before being released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the municipalities of El Tarra, Teorama and Tib\u00fa – all in Catatumbo – religious leaders have been intimidated by illegal armed and criminal groups and forced to suspend religious services or temporarily close their places of worship. Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders have been targeted due to their work in their communities, especially if that involves support for vulnerable groups, denouncing abuses, or attempting to respond to humanitarian needs. Even the attempts of religious leaders to provide humanitarian assistance can be interpreted by illegal armed and criminal actors as a threat to their territorial control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some have been killed under suspicious circumstances, with questions remaining after official investigations. In June 2024, Father Ram\u00f3n Arturo Montejo Peinado<\/a>, a priest known for his community and humanitarian work in Catatumbo, was murdered in Teorama. Father Montejo had participated in the Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (MVM) established under the peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN to monitor the ceasefire and verify reported incidents. Despite this role, the official explanation attributed his death to an attempted vehicle theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five months later, Salvador Zapateiro Mercado<\/a>, a 47-year-old Protestant evangelical pastor from United Pentecostal Church of Colombia, who also worked as an autobody mechanic, was shot dead while watching a football match between the Colombian and Ecuadorian national teams at a commercial establishment in Cartagena. In its initial report, authorities suggested that he may have been the victim of mistaken identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Organised armed strikes, violent clashes between armed groups, and the presence of anti-personnel mines can limit the movement of religious leaders in their communities and can have a direct impact on the members of their ministries. The violence can also affect places of worship and limit the ability of religious communities to gather, provide assistance, and support affected populations. In June 2026<\/a> an evangelical church in rural Tib\u00fa was struck during an attack involving explosives dropped from drones amidst clashes between illegal armed groups. The attack killed one child and injured six other civilians, while damaging a church and nearby homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Religious communities are also affected when their members are targeted by armed groups. On 12 September 2026 the daughter of a deacon at the Missionary Church of the Name of Jesus in Tib\u00fa was kidnapped. She was released after ten hours, following peaceful protests by church leaders and community members who publicly appealed to the group and emphasised that she had no connection to the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attacks on religious leaders are not restricted to Catatumbo and the surrounding areas. Between December 2024 and May 2026, at least 13 religious leaders were murdered, extrajudicially executed, forcibly disappeared, or kidnapped across the country. These cases include Protestant-evangelical leaders in Magdalena, Cesar, and Guaviare Departments, as well as Roman Catholic priests in the departments of C\u00f3rdoba and Norte de Santander. Due to incomplete reporting by the media and a tendency by the government to prioritise the quick resolution of complex cases, the connection to FoRB is often overlooked or ignored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the December 2024 shooting of Pastor Marlon Lora<\/a>, his wife and two adult children, the government swiftly adopted a theory of mistaken identity rather than taking into consideration his coordination of 35 churches located in rural areas with a significant presence of illegal armed and criminal groups and his rehabilitation work with young people addicted to illegal drugs, details that CSW specifically raised at a government convened Security Council meeting held on January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The media never reported that recordings of conversations between Pastor Iv\u00e1n Garc\u00eda and members of an organised criminal groups, in which he refused to allow them to use the church to store weapons or hide criminals, had been recovered on his mobile phone and were in the hands of the prosecutor\u2019s office. Pastor Garc\u00eda was shot and killed in January 2025<\/a> in the Banana Zone, Magdalena Department in a targeted act as he was returning home from an evening prayer vigil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, despite extensive media coverage of the forced disappearance of seven Protestant-evangelical leaders<\/a> in Guaviare Department in April 2025, one of whom had participated in a training programme for leaders targeted for preaching about Christianity, and the recovery of their bodies from a mass grave in July 2025, few articles acknowledged the link between the crime, and their religious activities and leadership roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither the media nor the government connected the murders, attributed to a breakaway FARC faction, to the broader historical context of severe restrictions imposed by the FARC on FoRB that Christians have long experienced in the region. There was no reference made to the history of targeted assassinations of Protestant-evangelical leaders by the FARC in Guaviare and neighbouring departments, including the 2009 murder of Pastor Manuel Camacho<\/a>, in Choapal, Guaviare, after he resisted their warnings to stop sharing his faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The locations differ, as do the circumstances, yet there is a common element deserving greater attention: all documented cases of murdered religious leaders over the past two years involve leaders who carried out their work in communities and territories where violence, armed control, threats, and civilian vulnerability are part of daily life.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This reality takes on particular significance when examining the state protection framework. Decree 1066 of 2015 establishes categories of the target populations for the National Protection Unit\u2019s (UNP) Prevention and Protection Program. In 2023 Decree 1285 was issued, amending this framework, removing religious leaders as a category of vulnerable populations with the justification that certain religious leaders could be considered under other categories, depending on the social or community functions they performed. In practice, this means that a religious leader can only gain access to protection if they meet the criteria applicable to another population group or when circumstances allow for their inclusion via established pathways.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n This change stands in contrast to Law 2421 of 2024, which amended Law 1448 of 2011, also known as the Victims’ Law, which expressly included religious leaders among groups at heightened risk and who are entitled to special guarantees and protection measures. The legislation also acknowledges the need to apply differentiated and bespoke approaches to measures regarding prevention, care, assistance, and reparation. It is also worth noting that the UNP possesses protection tools, which may include security personnel, vehicles and other resources, depending on the outcome of the relevant assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By removing religious leaders as a distinct category of persons entitled to special protection under the UNP Prevention and Protection Programme and subsuming them under the much broader category of social leaders, the specific protections available to this population, despite the risks arising from their social and religious work, were drastically reduced. Currently, for example, religious leaders primarily receive support from the National Police but this is limited to the temporary or permanent assignment of police personnel and unlike the UNP, the police do not provide a comprehensive protection scheme that includes vehicles, bulletproof vests and other security measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if they attempt to do so, requesting emergency protection measures under another category of vulnerable person, social leaders for example, poses serious challenges. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It can be difficult for a religious leader to meet the established criteria for accessing protection measures as they do not always perform community leadership roles in a formal or visible way. In addition to working other, non-religious jobs to support their families financially, many carry out their pastoral work via house-to-house visits at night and provide other forms of individual support to members of their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to harmonise this legal recognition of religious leaders’ particular vulnerability with the specific framework of the UNP\u2019s Prevention and Protection Programme warrants urgent examination by the authorities. Recognising religious leaders as part of the population covered by Decree 1066 does not mean that every pastor, priest, minister or religious leader must automatically be granted a security detail as the protection system entails an assessment of risk levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many religious leaders, especially in urban areas, live and work in relative safety. Many others, however, do not. Religious leaders often remain in places that others have already been forced to leave. They support confined communities, visit rural areas, provide humanitarian assistance, attend to victims, mediate conflicts, and, in some instances, publicly denounce abuses committed by armed actors. There must be official recognition that religious and community roles can give rise to specific risks, particularly in territories affected by armed groups, illicit economies, displacement, confinement and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question is not abstract. Pastor William Ortiz, who was displaced along with five other pastors from his denomination, the Missionary Church of the Name of Jesus, from Tib\u00fa to the border city of C\u00facuta in the wave of violence that has plagued Catatumbo since January 2025, told CSW that one of the main challenges they face is recognition of and lack of attention to their specific needs as religious leaders:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018We are victims twice over. We lost our homes and our livelihoods. As displaced people, we do not have practical work to do because our church was where we earned our living. We cannot simply start a new church wherever we end up due financial realities. We do not serve for money. That is part of the essence of who we are. On top of that, it would take two or three years before a new congregation could, through offerings, become financially self-sustaining. When we seek assistance from the state, we are told that religious leaders are not considered a priority and that other victims must be assisted first. So, we have no way to survive. We are taking on odd jobs, often under difficult conditions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Catatumbo, evidence reviewed by CSW demonstrates clearly how the activities of religious leaders and how those are informed by their beliefs can make them particularly visible targets inside territories characterised by a significant presence of illegal armed and criminal groups. Effectively addressing violence against religious leaders requires acknowledging the context in which they carry out their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Catatumbo to Cesar, and from Norte de Santander across Magdalena, C\u00f3rdoba, Guaviare and other departments, the documentation shows that there are<\/em><\/strong> knock on effects on wider FoRB and associated rights<\/a><\/em><\/strong> within the larger population when religious leaders are threatened, kidnapped, displaced, or assassinated.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The question raised by the case of Preacher Ortiz Joya and leaders like him is not merely who killed him and why, but, what prevention and protection mechanisms should have been available to him prior to the attack and why they were not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By CSW\u2019s Deputy Team Leader for Latin America<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n CSW is currently running a campaign<\/a> calling on the government to restore protections to religious leaders. Sign the petition here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ramon-Arturo-Montejo-Peinado.jpg\")
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An element overlooked<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Victims twice over<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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