Colombia’s Caribbean port city Cartagena has seen a surge in assassinations this year as paramilitary organization AGC is struggling to maintain control over local gangs.
More than 75 people have been assassinated in Cartagena so far this year, a significant increase in gang violence in the port city where “sicarios” killed 52 people in 2021.
The total number of homicides climbed to 238 on Wednesday after a two-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet.
According to Cartagena’s police chief, General Nicolas Zapata, the gang violence is caused by fighting between AGC forces “from other parts of the country” and its “people from the region.”
The AGC and Cartagena’s gangs
An estimated 36 gangs control Cartagena’s organized crime rackets and the drug trafficking routes to the container terminal in the south of the port city.
The AGC’s “Caribbean Heroes” front controls the north of the Bolivar province and the routes that connect inland cocaine production facilities to Cartagena.
Some of the coastal city’s gangs apparently stopped taking orders from the paramilitaries after the arrest of the Caribbean Heroes’ alleged commander, “Falcon,” in the Antioquia province last year.
In March, assassins of “the real AGC” left a pamphlet on the body of one of their victims, warning that “this will happen to Pati Pati and Jose Abogado’s gangs.”
According to Cartagena’s police chief, “Pati Pati” and “Jose Abogado” are coordinating the AGC’s offensive in Cartagena from their Antioquia hideouts.
This faction would be opposed by gangs that follow orders from alleged AGC ringleaders who are imprisoned in Cartagena’s Ternera prison and the Combita maximum security prison in Boyaca.
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Authorities swimming against the current
Authorities, and the Cartagena Police Department in particular, have been overwhelmed by the surge in gang violence and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Local police arrested more than 2,240 people so far this year, but failed to prevent the 38 homicides that made August the deadliest month of 2022.
Zapata asked the National Police to reinforce the Cartagena police force, which currently consists of 2,958 cops.
Public Security Secretary Ana Maria Gonzalez said that Cartagena’s city hall would additionally step up social programs that are “more constructive and preventive” and would “allow crime to be deterred.”
Tensions between the AGC and rival groups involved in drug trafficking have surged violence in multiple port cities on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.