Colombia’s Inspector General has announced actions to secure the safety of ten journalists from the north of Colombia who have received death threats from a neo-paramilitary group, reported local media Wednesday.
The Inspector General’s Office has said it will implement measures to protect the lives of ten journalists in the northern city of Santa Marta, who recently received chilling death threats.
The Inspector General said it “shall ensure that measures are taken for the protection of journalists,” in a statement. The findings of a preliminary assessment of the risk to the journalists’ safety will first be made to Colombia’s National Protection Unit.
In a letter signed by “The Caribbean Office”, the journalists were told, “enemies deserve to die so they shut up forever.”
The journalists from the north of Colombia received the threats following an interview with “El Canoso,” a demobilized paramilitary leader of the now-defunct Tayrona Resistance Bloc.
The demobilized paramilitary leader accused Santa Marta Mayor Carlos Caicedo, other local politicians and one of the sons of former President Alvaro Uribe of having ties to the “Northern Bloc,” to which the Tayrona Resistance Bloc belonged.