The Colombian Army denies reports that innocent civilians were forced
to join the demobilization of dozens of members of drug gang ‘Los
Rastrojos’.
On Tuesday, the Ombudsman in the Nuqui region in the west Colombian Choco department announced that he was investigating claims that more than forty of those involved in the demobilization in fact were no members of ‘Los Rastrojos’, but innocent civilians who had been forced to join the surrender’.
General Sergio Mantilla Sanmiguel, commander of the Army’s 7th division said that those that demobilized did so voluntarily and without any promise of a reward.
However, the General did admit that there had not been one massive surrender of 112 fighters as the army had said before, but three smaller ones on two different days.
The Prosecutor General’s Office is currently interrogating the suspected former gang members.