A protest in the center of Bogotá by Embera indigenous people displaced by the conflict, who demand attention and an improvement in their living conditions, ended with strong disturbances with the police of the Colombian capital and a balance of 24 injured, 11 of them police officers.
“Today we live a day of unjustified violence in the center of Bogotá by several representatives of the Embera community who are based in temporary accommodation in La Rioja,” explained the Secretary of the Government of Bogotá, Felipe Jiménez.
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The Mayor’s Office of the city assured that since the morning they established a dialogue table to listen to their claims and “quickly solve” the problem presented, but the Embera community continued the protests, “and blocked the entrance and exit of several buildings of the city”.
Human rights organizations denounced that the Police and the Mobile Riot Squad (Esmad) arrived in front of the Avianca Building, in the heart of downtown, when there were pregnant women, girls and boys who were demonstrating peacefully for food and decent housing with electricity and Water.
This caused several injuries, while some groups of protesters began to attack the police with stones and even attacked one of them with sticks, who was left lying on the ground, according to local media reports.
The Mayor’s Office assured that the police intervened to “recover the area”, but in the clashes seven coexistence managers, another five people, 11 police officers and a member of the legal representative were injured “as a result of unjustified violence.”
“The police are making progress in the capture and prosecution of each and every one of those responsible,” said Jiménez, who added that there are already two detainees.
Half a year ago, more than a thousand indigenous people who had been camped for months in the central Bogotá National Park agreed to relocate, but the authorities did not give them a solution for the health, housing and education problems they found in this new destination. For this reason, and in the face of countless calls for attention, some of these indigenous people, who are displaced from other areas of Colombia due to the conflict, went out today to protest in the center of the city.
“We are vulnerable victims, we have no subsidies, we have nothing,” said Rosmira Campo, an Embera indigenous leader displaced from the department of Risaralda, reported EFE
