At that time his family was displaced from the Chocoan lands.
The Unit for the Search for Persons Given as Disappeared (UBPD) and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) handed over to the family the body of the social leader Isaac Tuberquia, who was assassinated in 1997 in Chocó.
“Although today we have cried, we are very happy. We appreciate the work of the Search Unit, the JEP and all the institutions that participated in this process,” said Uriel Tuberquia, son of the social leader.
He added: “I have no way to describe this moment, we are too happy with my brothers. I am happy and resting. There is also the call to do something more, we have to continue building good things.
The ceremony took place in the municipality of Carmen del Darién, in Chocó, ending the 26-year wait for the Tuberquia family and the community where this man was an important community leader.
The director in charge of the UBPD, Claudia Isabel Niño, said that “from the Search Unit we are contributing to alleviating the suffering of the Tuberquia family that today, finally, and after 26 years of searching and waiting, will have a place to honor his memory.”
«In this way, we contribute to the reconstruction of the causes of the conflict, we contribute to the construction of peace, giving families and the community the right to know what happened to their disappeared loved one and we contribute to the reconstruction of the social fabric of the Curbaradó community,” said the official.
The humanitarian and extrajudicial articulation of this case is part of the Regional Search Plan (PBR) of Bajo Atrato and according to which a preliminary universe of 855 people reported missing in the period between 1982 and 2016 in that northwestern region has been established. from Colombia.
The Tuberquia case
Tuberquia was murdered along with his friend Julio Mendoza on August 24, 1997 in Curbaradó, in events related to the armed conflict.
The bodies of these two men had to be buried in the place where they were murdered to avoid reprisals from the armed actors who perpetrated the crime.
“Meanwhile, the Tuberquia family, like other inhabitants, left the region displaced without being able to keep information on the exact place where they were buried. The foregoing, due to the radical transformation of the territory that generated the cultivation of palm, banana and livestock, “added the UBPD in a statement.
Companies dedicated to these issues “built roads and boundaries different from those known, so their inhabitants lost reference points and any possibility of locating themselves.”
Thus, the Investigation and Prosecution Unit of the JEP demarcated the coordinates in which the body was supposedly located and the articulation with the UBPD was activated so that it could coordinate the prospecting and recovery work of the body of Messrs. Tuberquia and Mendoza.
“In April 2021, in agreement and under the care of the Curbaradó community, respecting their ethnic-territorial perspectives, the UBPD carried out the recovery of bone structures that could correspond to Isaac Tuberquia and Julio Mendoza and took biological samples. of the relatives”, specified the Unit.
Then the agency coordinated with the family the dignified delivery of the body and the ceremony that was to be held for that purpose and for the burial of Tuberquia’s body.
EFE