Colombians call for end to impunity as activist killings continue

Dora Munoz’s life was irreparably changed on March 14.

That night, she received news nobody wants to hear: her husband, Miller Correa, had been found dead. His lifeless body was discovered strewn alongside a road near the small rural community of Las Chozas, on the outskirts of the southeastern Colombian city of Popayan.

Correa was a prominent social leader and Indigenous rights defender who worked throughout the turbulent department of Cauca, which has seen a recent uptick in violence between armed groups battling for control of territory, resources and key drug routes.

Due to his position as a social leader and his political activism, the state had appointed a personal security detail to Correa.

But that night in March, the 40-year-old attended a meeting without his protective team, and upon leaving, he was attacked by armed men, according to his wife and local media. Two days later, the armed group Aguilas Negras – or Black Eagles – took credit for the killing.

Correa was a prominent social leader and Indigenous rights defender who worked throughout the turbulent department of Cauca, which has seen a recent uptick in violence between armed groups battling for control of territory, resources and key drug routes.

Due to his position as a social leader and his political activism, the state had appointed a personal security detail to Correa.

But that night in March, the 40-year-old attended a meeting without his protective team, and upon leaving, he was attacked by armed men, according to his wife and local media. Two days later, the armed group Aguilas Negras – or Black Eagles – took credit for the killing.

“It’s been very, very difficult for me,” Munoz told Al Jazeera in a recent interview. “It’s something that one never quite understands, even living through it. It’s incomprehensible, you can’t find any valid justification for such an act.”