One of the daughters of the displaced leader murdered Tuesday blamed the Colombian government for the incident and requested protection for her siblings, while the government issued a statement condemning the assassination.
“I attribute this crime to the state,” said Efe Diana Ospina Cordoba, the 28-year-old daughter of Ana Fabricia Cordoba, the displaced leader and cousin of former Senator Piedad Cordoba who was murdered Tuesday on a Medellin bus in the Santa Cruz neighborhood.
Diana believes that the homicide is related to the assassination of her brother Johnatan 11 months earlier, also in Medellin, whose death was attributed by various people to the city’s metropolitan police. The daughter reported that her mother had refused to let the case go unheard, and stated, “She [Ana Fabricia] told me: ‘they are going to kill me, but what I want is justice,'” newspaper El Espectador reported Wednesday.
She also reported that the leader’s three children have received death threats, stating, “Last night we received a threatening call, [in which they told us] that all of us were going to end up the same.”
Diana called on the government to make sure that the crimes that have occurred do not go unpunished, and to offer security measures for her and her younger siblings, as they failed to do for her mother.
Meanwhile, the national government has condemned the assassination, with Vice President Angelino Garzon stating that “The moment of the victims has arrived in Colombia. This government reaffirms its promise to the victims and their rights and tells criminals that cases like that of Ana Fabricia will not remain unpunished,”newspaper Semana reported.
Notary and Registry Superintendent Jorge Enrique Velez said that, in the face of the recent murder, he offers any displaced Colombian or victim of land seizure to come solicit the necessary protection at his office, and that despite the threats, “the land will be recovered because this is the promise of the government.”
The Organization of American States (OAS) also expressed concern over the murder of Ana Fabricia, and more generally “the situation of insecurity and the state of vulnerability in which many leaders of the country’s victims organizations find themselves.”