Bogota, July 6 (RHC)-- Colombia's Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz) condemned the murder Monday of community member Camilo Puni Bomba in the department of Cauca (southwest), bringing to 99 the number of social leaders killed during 2022 and 1,326 since the Peace Agreement, signed in late 2016.

In a report disseminated through social networks, Indepaz said that armed individuals arrived at a public establishment in the village of Tres Quebradas, municipality of Santander de Quilichao, took out the people who were there, and then took the lives of Puni Bomba and indigenous community member Wilmer Valencia.

The social leader was currently a community member of Guaitalá, a Munchique los Tigres reservation, and a teacher for ten years at the La Aurora agricultural school, located in the aforementioned municipality.

According to Indepaz, some time ago the Ombudsman's Office issued an early warning about the situation of violence in Santander de Quilichao.  It called attention to the fact that the threats and attacks occurring there are an expression of the attempt to "silence the collective demands represented by leaders of peasant, indigenous, Afro-descendant organizations and signatories in the process of reincorporation".

The Ombudsman's Office added that the systematic violence is also directed against leaders who supported the Peace Agreement signed at the end of 2016 between the Government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP).

This Monday, peace signatory Ronald Rojas was also shot in the department of Huila (southwest).  According to Indepaz records, 22 signatories have been killed so far this year and 321 have lost their lives as a result of political violence since the Peace Accord.