In the time of the Covid-19: The systematic assassinations of social leaders in Colombia continue.

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According to social organizations in Colombia, so far in the first quarter of the year 2020, about 70 social leaders and human rights defenders have been murdered in the country, although the official data puts it at 36.

Historically, Colombia has had social, peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations and women's organizations that have demanded and exercised the right to land and territory, persistently denouncing the magnitude of the systematic dispossession they have suffered for many years, pointing out the causes and those responsible for it, as well as LGBT groups that have been organizing themselves and claiming their rights.  Within the framework of this arduous work, many women leaders have been victims of assassinations, disappearances, judicial proceedings, exile and displacement, among other ways of silencing their demands, since the dispossession of land and territory is precisely one of the main edges of the Colombian conflict.

Socio-political violence is closely linked to conflicts over land and territory, elements that have deep historical roots and have configured social orders that exclude peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, which in turn have developed organizational processes to demand access to land.

From 2010 to date, Colombian organizations and social movements have denounced the systematic murder of more than 700 social leaders and human rights defenders. The current report of the United Nations in Colombia, prepared in 2019 and presented in February 2020, notes, among other things

Defending human rights continues to be considered a high-risk task in Colombia, in 2019, OHCHR documented 108 killings of human rights defenders, including 15 women and two members of the LGBTI population. While the figures show the seriousness of the problem, reducing the analysis to a numerical consideration prevents understanding and insight into the structural causes of violence against women human rights defenders.

Faced with this situation international social organisations have been denouncing the killings of women leaders in the country. For this reason, organisations from the Spanish state and the Basque Autonomous Community have sent a letter to the Colombian Embassy in Spain, pointing out, among other things, and in line with the United Nations, that Colombia is one of the most lethal countries in the world for human rights defenders and social leaders, and show that in the current conditions of confinement by Covid-19, the national government through the National Protection Unit (UPN) has in some cases reduced the security schemes of defenders and social leaders, which puts them at greater risk of being killed. They also refer to cases of the murder of leaders such as Ivo Humberto Bracamonte Quiroz, social communicator and councilor of Puerto Santander (Norte de Santander), Marco Rivadeneira, leader of peasant communities in Puerto Asís (Putumayo), Ovidio Quintero González, social leader and councilor of San Francisco (Antioquia), Omar and Ernesto Guasiruma, indigenous leaders of the Municipality of Bolívar (Valle del Cauca) and Carlota Isabel Salinas, leader of the Popular Women's Organization of San Pablo (Bolívar).