Published:
8 feb 2022 13: 35 GMT
The incident occurred in the town of Kennedy, when the peasant rights fighter, accompanied by her escorts, was on her way home.
A Colombian social and environmental leader was unharmed after a group of unknown men shot at the van she was traveling in Bogotá, the capital of the South American country, on Monday night.
This is Amparo Toloza, a member of the opposition political group Colombia Humana and an activist against illegal mining in the municipality of Río Viejo, in the department of Bolívar, in the Caribbean region.
El hecho ocurrió en la localidad bogotana de Kennedy, en el suroccidente, cuando la luchadora por los derechos de los campesinos, en compañía de sus escoltas, se dirigía hacia su casa, ubicada en Bosa, también en el suroccidente.
In an interview for Radio Nacional de Colombia, conducted this Tuesday, Toloza assert that i felt ” very scared“for what might happen to him from now on. “They want to shut me up on different occasions and have not succeeded. I will continue to stand up for the human rights of all people in the country.”
Attack
One of the members of his security scheme claimed that three men aboard a red car shot them on several occasions. “When I saw this, I accelerated and I took them in front almost a block, there they got off running and abandoned the car”, collect RCN Radio.
The vehicle in which the leader and her escorts were traveling is armored so the shots only caused damage to the outside of its structure, as can be seen in a video shared on networks by Adolfo Rivas, candidate for the Green Alliance party for the Chamber for Bogotá.
#ATTENTION/ They tried to assassinate Amparo Toloza, a social leader of victims, just happened in Bogotá. Please help to denounce that they want to kill us for defending peace, to demand full reparation and the return of the lands dispossessed by the paramilitaries. pic.twitter.com/hDmddtY5kD
– RIVAS ????115 Camera Bogota (@adolforivas115) February 8, 2022
Toloza, who has received threats on several occasions, reported in November 2020 that an explosive device had been detonated in the house where he was staying, in the same Colombian city.
For their part, the authorities said that the investigations are ongoing, but they said that they rule out that what happened was an attack. This is what Álvaro Correa, inspection officer of the Bogotá Police, said in declaration to W Radio, who assured that what happened was a attempted theft con intimidación y que cuando los agresores se habrían percatado de que el vehículo estaba blindado, hicieron varios disparos.
A revolver was found inside the car where the strangers were going, who fled.
Despite the authorities ‘ version, the murder of social leaders in Colombia is a constant. So far this year, 17 human rights defenders have been killed, compared to 168 in 2021, under the registry of the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz).