4 Keys on the finding in Colombia of a common grave with the bodies of 8 social and religious leaders

Bitis is the maximum head of the criminal structure known as the Central General Staff.

President Gustavo Petro expressed his rejection in the face of the murder of the leaders and added that “everything indicates that they were kidnapped and killed amid territorial disputes by illegal armed groups.”

For weeks, the department of Guaviare is lives besieged by the armed confrontation of two factions of the FARC dissidents: the one directed by Iván Bite Bite and the one directed by Alias ​​Calarcá.

The authorities confirmed that the bodies found in the common grave correspond to those of Jesús Valero, Carlos Valero, Marivel Silva, Isaid Gómez, Maryuri Hérnandez, Óscar Hernández, James Caicedo and Nixon Peñaloza Chacón, the six men and the two women who disappeared in April.

Seven of the eight people, according to Christian Solidity Worldwide (CSW), an international human rights organization specialized in religious freedom, were leaders and active members of two evangelical communities: the Christian Church Alliance of Colombia and the Cuadrangular Christian Church.

Héctor Pardo, president of the Colombian Confederation of Religious Freedom, Consciousness and Worship, told BBC Mundo that the victims were not shepherds, but very prominent members of the Church: Nixon was the treasurer, Maryuri was a teacher, and James was a preacher leader, to name some.

BBC Mundo communicated with the two churches, but did not receive an answer immediately.

The Paz & Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), which investigates the armed conflict in Colombia, informed that the victims had come to live in Guaviare from the department of Arauca after the pandemic.

“The reason why (the members of the dissidents) had summoned these members of a religious community was to know if a new ELN cell was being created in the area,” says pairs. The ELN is an old guerrillas with presence in several regions of the country.

Speaking to local media, the mayor of Calamar, the municipality where the common fossa was found, referred to the effect of the murder of social and religious leaders in the rest of the community.

“Today nobody wants to be President of the Board in Calamar, Guaviare,” he said. “Nobody wants to even attend a cult, or cults have to do them clandestinely by fear.”

With that, Pardo coincides, who is an important evangelical leader in Colombia. “People are afraid, sometimes they stop going to church for fear that they will kill them.”

In 2024, 173 social leaders in Colombia were killed, according to figures from the Indepaz organization.

It is the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders and social leaders, according to a Front Line Defenders report.

Both in the Prosecutor's Office and in the reaction of the Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, in X he is responsible for the facts to the dissidents of alias Iván Bite.

Bitis was commander of the extinct FARC and is now the maximum head of the central General Staff, a network of local criminal structures that operate with relative autonomy and claim to be the true FARC.

The mayor of Calamar, however, expressed in local media that there are no certainties about whether the crime was committed by the faction under the mordista or that in command of Alias ​​Calarcá.

Those two factions were one before a single dissent, but they were split in 2024, when bite decided to get up from the negotiating table with the government and Calarcá continued to negotiate in the name of the self -styled staff of blocks and fronts.

Since then, they are enemy sides, and Guaviare is the heart of that armed confrontation.

In fact, the inhabitants of the municipality of Calamar remained confined from June 16 to this territorial dispute.

“There are families who at this time do not even have what to eat, because they come from an eight -day confinement,” said the mayor this Wednesday and asked the National Government to intervene in the region.

In his X account, President Gustavo Petro described the facts as “a serious affront to the right to life, religious freedom and spiritual and community work that so many people advance in regions historically beaten by violence”, and asked the State entities to redouble efforts to protect social and religious leaders.

“It is the duty of the State to guarantee their security and ensure that these crimes are not repeated or unpunished,” he added.

The Petro government has tried to negotiate with the dissidents of the FARC as part of its “total peace” strategy, for now without success.

Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez offered a reward of US $ 1.1 million for information that leads to the capture of alias bite.

Sanchez informed that the discovery of the bodies was achieved thanks to the army “achieved the submission of an alleged member of that criminal structure, who reported the atrocious crime and revealed the location of the common grave.”

The Ombudsman, Iris Marín, said she had warned about the dispute between Calarcá and Bite, and the risk that this implied for the civilian population in Guaviare.

“The entry of humanitarian care for communities affected by confinements is still pending,” Marín added.

In an intervention in Congress before the news of the discovery of the common fossa, the senator and former national director of Religious Affairs, Lorena Ríos, had asked for the effective action of the authorities to achieve the release of the eight leaders.

Ríos expressed concern about the “violations and violations of religious freedom that we are having in Colombia.”

He added: “The churches, the communities of faith, have played a fundamental role, not only in the protection of human rights, but also in the reconstruction of the social fabric.”

For Pastor Héctor Pardo, this is not the first time that evangelical churches are the objective of armed violence in Colombia.

This violent fact recalls the persecution of armed groups to the evangelical churches in the 80s and 90s, he said in dialogue with BBC Mundo.

The Catholic Church also reacted to the discovery of the common grave.

“This infamous act, which has claimed the lives of eight people, who dedicated their lives to spiritual and community service (…) represents a serious affectation to the social life and peace of the region,” read in a statement from the Diocese of San José del Guaviare and the delegation for Church-states of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia.

Subscribe here To our new newsletter to receive every Friday a selection of our best content of the week.

And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and act.