Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos asked citizens Satuday to help the country’s security forces in fighting crime, but warned them not to take law into their own hands.
According to Santos, cooperation between the community and police is “vital” to improve crime rates.
“This is the solution, there is no other. This is not taking the law into your own hands, but collaborating with the security forces and to react, to respond,” Santos said at a public speech in the country’s third largest city, Cali.
While official figures show a steady decline in Colombia’s crime rates, cities continue to suffer from high murder rates due to infighting between urban gangs. The ombudsman of Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, said Friday that while murder rates continue to go down, more than 2,300 people have been disappeared since 2009.