The mayor of Sipí, Juan Wilmer Rivas, denounced that the 5,000 inhabitants of his municipality are displaced, confined and hungry, as a result of the armed strike carried out by the ELN guerrillas and the confrontations with members of the Clan del Golfo.
Sipí is affected in its entirety, but the penalties also occur in the corregimientos of Nóvita, Litoral de San Juan, Medi San Juan and Istmina.
People are desperate, they can’t even go out to look for their food. All this part of the San Juan subregion is ‘kidnapped’: 9,000 people, 52 communities.
Due to the lack of land routes, communication is carried out by rivers, which are now not used due to their control by illegal armed groups. In the last hours some boats with humanitarian aid were attacked.
People are trapped and have no food or hospital care. The electoral process is affected since it has not been possible to establish some posts of the National Registry and pressures and threats from the two illegal groups against political candidates have been denounced.
“It was very horrible, that bit of shots, and I don’t know what they threw at the house, like a grenade launcher, I don’t know what that is… because when it exploded it left a hole in the cement, it destroyed my house” , said one of the affected inhabitants of the rural area of Sipí.
In the Chambacú community, José Florencio Hurtado was murdered and his son was wounded.