A group of unknown assailants stabbed Marco Romero, the director of CODHES, a Colombian NGO that campaigns for human rights and against forced displacement, while he was walking through central Bogota on Saturday night.
Romero said he was stabbed several times by a group of six men during the attack. The NGO director was rushed to hospital and was released on Sunday.
CODHES hopes authorities will investigate the motives behind the attack.
Romero reported that last week he received three death threats from drug trafficking criminal gangs “Aguilas Negras,” “Los Rastrojos,” and “Bloque Capital.”
The assassination attempt on Romero follows the murder of a human rights activist in northern Colombia last week.
On Tuesday, a U.S.-based NGO alleged that they and 80 other Colombian NGOs received death threats from the Aguilas Negras.
In April, CODHES reported that they and 60 other NGOs, senators, and human rights activists received death threats from Los Rastrojos.
In January, two Afro-Colombian community leaders and human rights defenders from the department of Cauca were killed by unknown assassins.
Romero has been a human rights campaigner, particularly in the field of forced displacement, for over 20 years.
