Social leader Freddy Enrique Pallares Amaya assassinated, 44th this year

Freddy Enrique Pallares Amaya knew he was going to be killed. On the afternoon of Thursday, March 24, he was about to watch the match of the Colombian national team against Bolivia, when two armed men entered his home, located on 9th street and avenue 1 in the 7th district of Agosto in Cucuta and shot him three times, killing him immediately.

He died on the couch of his house, in the eyes of his wife and two children.

This 50-year-old mechanic by profession became the 44th social leader killed in Colombia during 2022, according to the Institute for Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) and 1,330 since the signing of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian State and the former FARC guerrilla in 2016.

The organization that monitors human rights defenders in the country, stated that the victim was currently a mobility supervisor and carried out control, surveillance and follow-up on the actions of the transit governing bodies in the department of Norte de Santander.

In recent days, he reportedly made complaints against alleged injustices and abuses by some officials in the metropolitan area.

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This was reportedly confirmed by Pallares Amaya's wife to the authorities after the murder. The victim had reported on March 16 to the Public Prosecutor's Office that he was the target of threats by a gang of extortionists, even two days later, his wife again told the authorities that “he was being frightened”.

The bullets hit him in the chest, abdomen and chest. According to witnesses to the events, her romantic companion, who was sleeping in the room, got up quickly and saw her husband touching his chest. “He managed to say: 'love they killed me' and fell to the floor dying and bloody. The woman got out of control when she saw that terrible scene and started screaming, so that the neighbors would help her to help her.”

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Members of the Inter-Agency Homicide Brigade (Brinho) arrived at the scene and carried out the technical inspection of the crime scene, finding a vanilla of the bullets fired by the murderer.

For its part, the Ombudsman's Office had issued Early Warning 011-20 for Cucuta and the rural area. The entity emphasized that the determination was due “to the situation of risk of violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law”.

In addition to being a regional overseer, Pallares Amaya, had a mechanical workshop that was located inside the house where he was killed. According to the wife's statements to Brinho, her husband, he was threatened by a gang that sold stolen motorcycles.

Precisely, the alert from the Ombudsman's Office said: “Other infringing behaviors have been perpetrated in the metropolitan area of Cúcuta, such as extortion charges to shops and farms by Los Rastrojos, are known of the retention of people who have been taken moored and passed into Venezuelan territory,” says the entity of the Public Ministry.

People close to the victim described him, to the newspaper La Opinión de Cúcuta, as a kind person dedicated to his work, “His ethics and respect always characterized him, it is a pity that he was murdered,” said a relative.

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