Caracas denounces “mass murder” of migrants in Colombia

INA-  sources

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab on Tuesday denounced the “massive murder” of Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia, after the “extrajudicial execution” of two young people aged 12 and 18 in a border region. “The appalling number could reach around 3,000 Venezuelans who have died victims of hatred and xenophobia,” said Tarek William Saab, speaking of “the mass murder of Venezuelans in Colombia.”
 
The death of the two adolescents is “not an isolated or exceptional act. At least 1,933 Venezuelan immigrants have been murdered and 836 are missing. From January to August, 362 Venezuelans were murdered in Colombia, ”Tarek William Saab said on national television, citing a report from the NGO CODHES (Council for Human Rights and Displacement).
 
Two murdered teenagers
On Monday, the UN called for an investigation into the murder of the two teenagers, whose photos and videos were widely shared on social media. On videos and photos widely relayed on social networks, the two boys appear in the premises of the shop where they attempted to steal, clearly caught in the act. The younger of the two wears a small red school backpack and barely looks a teenager.
 
With a contrite air, their wrists tied with thick scotch tape, they are surrounded by several people who lecture them. Also according to images posted on social networks, the bodies of the two teenagers were found shortly after lying in their blood on a country trail, apparently executed with a bullet in the chest.
 
A piece of cardboard handwritten “thief” was thrown at the child with the red backpack, identified by Venezuelan authorities as Alexander José Fernandez Rodriguez. The incident took place on Saturday in the town of Tibu, in the northern department of Santander, on the border with Venezuela, where numerous criminal gangs and armed groups are rife and where drug trafficking is important.
 
“Crimes against humanity”
The provincial authorities condemned the “unacceptable violence” of these assassinations “of a minor and a young adult”. “These are crimes against humanity,” said the prosecutor who said he had seized the Colombian authorities.
 
More than 5 million Venezuelans have fled the economic and political crisis in Venezuela. The majority, 1.7 million, have fled to neighboring Colombia, according to UN figures. Venezuela closed its land borders in February 2019 during the standoff between President Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized as interim president by some 50 countries including the United States.
 
Caracas had severed diplomatic relations with Bogotá after the recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president by Colombia. But the border had already been almost completely closed since 2015 due to the tension between the two neighbors, ideologically opposed, who have 2,200 kilometers of common borders. Thousands of people continue to cross clandestinely between the two countries through the now famous “trochs”.