Over 350 green activists killed since 2018 in nature summit host Colombia

More than 350 environmental activists have been killed since 2018 in Colombia, an NGO report said Wednesday, as the country played host to the world's biggest nature protection conference.

The PARES foundation reported a total of 361 killings over the period in the South American nation, with 81 murders making 2023 the deadliest year.

Colombia has been struggling to extricate itself from six decades of armed conflict between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government.

Armed groups often come into conflict with local communities and activists as they engage in illegal mining and land clearance for growing coca -- the main ingredient of cocaine, of which Colombia is the world's biggest producer and exporter.

"The dispute between armed actors over territorial control of areas of interest to them has become one of the main risk factors for environmental defenders," PARES said in a report issued in the city of Cali, host of the COP16 UN summit on biodiversity.

Cali has been placed under the protection of more than 10,000 police and soldiers after threats against the summit from the EMC guerrilla group.

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Two-thirds of activist murders reported since 2018 have gone unpunished, according to the PARES report.

More than half occurred in only three of Colombia's 32 departments. Two of them -- Cauca and Narino -- are strongholds of EMC and other dissidents who rejected a peace deal that saw the FARC guerrilla army disband in 2017.

The report said that in cases where the perpetrators were known, FARC dissidents were responsible for more than half of the murders, the ELN rival guerrilla group for about 20 per cent, and the Gulf Clan drug cartel for another 16 per cent.

Fifty-seven per cent of environmentalists killed in Cauca and Narino were leaders of Indigenous groups, according to PARES, which lamented "poor coordination of state institutions" to deal with the problem.

The international watchdog Global Witness has said Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for environmental activists.

Activists who opposed legal projects such as mines and hydroelectric installations were also among the victims, said PARES.