Only in the last holiday weekend, Cúcuta recorded 12 homicides and six injuries in different violent events. So far this year, the northern Santander capital has recorded 173 murders in its metropolitan area.
According to the criteria of
These events are mainly recorded in rural areas, but there are also several cases of hitmen that occur in urban areas. Violence is present not only in the most remote communes or neighborhoods, but the recent deaths have occurred in the heart of the center and pink zone of the border city.
Although Mayor Jorge Acevedo has promised a tough line against insecurity, citizens insist that the strategies have remained just words and the reality is different. As of June 12, authorities recorded the death of 17 people in Cúcuta and its metropolitan area.
Cúcuta.
Photo:AFP
“Of the 126 deaths that have occurred this year in Cúcuta, 89 percent had judicial records, only 14 people did not. That is, this territorial dispute forces us to ask for help from the National Government and to ask that a Military Police battalion be installed,” said Acevedo.
The president highlighted some positive figures in the reduction of other crimes such as cell phone theft and illegal carrying of weapons, and invited the Minister of Defense to hold a security council.
Carlos Arturo Ramos, administrative director of Corporeddeh, stated that according to the figures provided by the National Police, the majority of crimes reflect a significant increase compared to 2023, thus distorting what Acevedo said.
“The security strategy that the mayor has proposed is wrong in every way you look at it. The fact of proposing that the circumstance is less problematic because the deaths are mostly due to settling of accounts, is as if life had less or more value. People are afraid to go out into the streets, not because they are murdering one person or another, but because they are murdering citizens,” said the defender.
Car bomb case in Cúcuta.
Photo:Private file
Ramos suggests that the requests that Acevedo has been making to the National Government are not in line with the policy of ‘total peace’, and that his management as mayor should focus on dialogue with criminal gangs and obtaining economic measures that counteract the unemployment and informality.
“No one in Cúcuta is safe. There is not a single citizen who is safe in the midst of the anxiety generated by the bullets. The strategy of taking the military to the streets is a desperate measure that has contributed nothing and will not contribute anything. This weekend we had the army in Caobos and in the central area, and even so there were more than eight deaths,” added the expert.
Measures have not been enough
Lawyer and teacher Yefri Torrado warned that Acevedo is the highest police authority in the municipality, and that the measures implemented are not based on evidence and only seek to send a symbolic and deterrent message (such as patrols with military assistance) to which crime easily adapts.
“In recent days, the National Government has been called upon to apply measures of rapprochement and dialogue with these structures. But it will be difficult if the territorial governments (mayor and governor’s office) do not incorporate projects or resources into their development plans for measures that seek to implement these negotiations,” he stated.
The expert recalled that Law 2272 of 2022 enabled the Government to develop processes of approaches and conversations with armed groups or organized armed structures of high-impact crime (EAOCAI), in order to achieve their submission to justice and dismantling them.
“They are not concentrating on dismantling drug trafficking organizations and money laundering.” that have a notable influence in the region and that sponsor more than 25 crime gangs. Nor are ‘total peace’ measures being implemented to negotiate with these groups or armed structures with a political nature,” Torrado added.
There are effects on commerce due to violence.
Photo:Courtesy: Corponor
For its part, the Metropolitan Police of Cúcuta (Mecuc) has limited itself to highlighting on social networks the night patrols in some neighborhoods and commercial areas, and the seizure of weapons and ammunition.
Colonel William Quintero, commander of the Mecuc, did not refer to the high rate of homicides, but expressed that within the citizen security plan ‘Cúcuta Safe Territory’, Jhon Jairo Herrera, a dangerous explosivesman at the service of the dissidents of the FARC.
“In the last hours, 14 search and seizure procedures were carried out, dealing a decisive blow to homicide and micro-trafficking, where 14 people were captured. “During the weekend, 31 people were captured in flagrante delicto and five firearms were seized,” the officer said.
Another issue that worries Cucuteños It has to do with the overcrowding of people deprived of their liberty who remain in police station cells and have not been transferred to the Modelo prison in Cúcuta.
Although the mayor said that “we are removing criminals from the stations and transferring them to the prison complex to free up public forces,” the truth is that the agreement signed with Inpec has not yet been implemented and as a consequence, today the prison is closed for the entry of defendants.
For now, Cucuteños long for the violence to stop and an end to the fear and anxiety that has resulted in a decrease in commerce in the city. Social leaders, teachers and journalists They continue to be threatened and no place appears to be safe in the country’s main border city.
ANDRES CARVAJAL
For the time
CÚCUTA
