One of Colombia’s most prominent victim representatives has been told that the next child who will be crying over his mother’s dead body will be hers.
Yirley Velasco, who survived the 2000 Massacre of El Salado, on Saturday received her latest death threat in a white envelop tied with a black ribbon that was signed by the AUC, the paramilitary organization whose members raped her.
Victims representative Yirley Velasco
Weeks earlier a judge ordered the state to compensate survivors for its complicity in the massacre, partly due to the activism of Velasco and the El Salado Victims Roundtable she’s a member of.
State convicted for “the worst massacre” in the history of Colombia’s armed conflict
The El Salado victim representatives, and particularly Velasco, have been receiving death threats ever since they returned to their village.
She requested protection from The National Protection Unit (UNP), but has so far received nothing but a bulletproof vest and a cell phone, she told W Radio.
Fearing for her life, Velasco said that she’s at “extraordinary risk” and needs actual protection if she wants to live and continue helping victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence in her town.
“I am currently accompanying 120 women in El Salado,” the community leader told W Radio. The paramilitaries “don’t want her in Montes de Maria,” the war-torn region where she was born, raised and raped.
Whether Velasco lives or becomes another statistic on the growing list of assassinated social leaders depends on the same authorities who have been convicted for the massacre during which she was raped.
“The police are our allies. They are the ones keeping us informed about you,” the death threat made clear.
The UNP has not responded to Velasco’s desperate cry for help to stay alive.