The violence in southwestern Colombia gives no respite. This Sunday, while Father’s Day was being celebrated in the South American country, the vehicle in which the father and a nephew of Vice President Francia Márquez were traveling was attacked by gunfire on the highway between Suárez (Cauca) and Cali (Valle del Cauca). ). “My heart hurts that just on this day, they attacked my father,” the official declared in a message on . There is no official confirmation about those responsible, but the Presidency has stated in a statement that “it is unacceptable that the armed groups operating in the area continue to use disproportionate violence and terror as tools of war.”
The attack occurs in a context of fierce clashes between the Military Forces and the dissidents of the extinct FARC in that area. Unlike other regions of the country, in the southwest there is no bilateral ceasefire between the State and the dissident groups of the extinct FARC. The Government of Gustavo Petro suspended him there in March, when patience ran out in the face of continuous attacks by armed groups on indigenous communities. A month later, several fronts in the area withdrew from the peace negotiations carried out by the group of dissidents to which they have been linked, the self-proclaimed Central General Staff (EMC), with the Executive. Since then, every week there are news of large-scale clashes, attacks on police stations and dead civilians.
This Sunday, the vice president expressed her concern about security in the region, where she was born and grew up as a social leader. She has asked that the Ministry of Defense take measures to strengthen the presence of the Military Forces and the Police and has called not to abandon efforts for peace. “In these difficult times I call on all of Colombia to join the efforts that are necessary to lead our society to peace. If we work in unity we can turn this page of pain and violence,” she noted on her social networks. She has also expressed her concern for her relatives, who live in the area, and has asked the Prosecutor’s Office to open investigations to clarify the facts.
President Gustavo Petro has expressed his support for the vice president through a message on X. “A hug of solidarity for the vice president for the attack against her father. “I ask the authorities to initiate the relevant investigations,” he declared. The director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic and right hand of the president, Laura Sarabia, has expressed her sadness that Márquez must face this situation on Father’s Day. “Violence cannot continue to take away the happiness of Colombian families. A hug for her and her entire family,” she said. Cha Dorina Hernández, a congresswoman close to Márquez, has expressed her solidarity and has stated that they will not back down: “The violent people are not going to intimidate us, peace is our irreversible purpose.”
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It is not the first time that violence has touched Márquez closely since she became vice president. In January 2023, her security team found more than seven kilos of explosives on the road that leads to her family residence in the village of Yolombó, in the municipality of Suárez. “It was a new attempt to attack my life. However, we will not stop working, day after day, until we achieve the total peace that Colombia dreams of and needs. We will not give up until in each territory it is possible to live in true harmony,” she said at the time. Months later, in April, a niece of the vice president was injured during a shootout between two gangs in Cali, the third largest city in the country.
Márquez’s arrival to the Vice Presidency, in August 2022, was a historic moment for Colombia. She is the first Afro woman to hold such a high position in the Colombian Government and represents historically excluded social movements—she gained national and international renown for her struggles to prevent a multinational from diverting the river from her community, in the department of Cauca. However, these two years have been difficult. Her approval levels have plummeted in the face of difficulties in advancing campaign promises and teachings from the opposition and some media outlets. She, who has achieved the creation of the Ministry of Equality that she has headed for a year, has expressed on several occasions her frustration with the restrictions imposed by the state bureaucracy to move faster with the changes that the Government has indicated that the country needs. .
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