Alert in Cartagena for insecurity in the Historic Center

Insecurity has increased in Cartagena, so the collective of residents Somos Centro Histórico criticized the management of the district authorities. “The Historic Center becomes another dark area of the city,” says the communication.

It is that in the tourist center there have been everything from motorcycle robberies to the dismantling of utility counters, sharps quarrels between homeless people, informal vendors and tourists and other actions that go against the law.

According to the reports of residents and visitors, the presence of the police is insufficient for the demand of illegalities and irregularities that occur in the Historic Center 24 hours a day.

“The mayor's office does not exercise authority; on the contrary, its actions seem to protect private interests, regardless of residents and tourists who visit the city for their cultural heritage, who in many cases are victims of theft and harassed by microtrafficking, exploiters of minors and actors of the informal economy, including artists street rappers, especially rappers. Also, they suffer from vehicular chaos,” said collective of residents Somos Centro Histórico.

The Somos Centro Histórico Residents Collective points out that the mayor's office does not exercise authority, on the contrary, its actions seem to protect private interests regardless of residents and tourists who visit the city for their cultural heritage, who in many cases are victims of robberies and harassed by microtrafficking, exploiters of minors and actors in the informal economy, including street artists, especially rappers. Also, they suffer from vehicular chaos.

“Responsibilities for this chaos lie with the offices of the Mayor's Office such as the Ministry of the Interior, an entity complicit in lifting the curfew, and thereby extending the night time to activities that generate lack of control in the Historic Center, ignoring the use of mixed land in the area. All this contributes to the deterioration of historical and social value, because it encourages “tourism in excesses at night”, and positions the city as a destination of sexual lack of control,” said the collective.

And they added that “traffic agents are the main ones absent from the Historic Center, which is why traffic congestion in the area makes mobility impossible, in addition to parking in places not allowed and the presence of motorcycles with barbecues that is prohibited in the old city. However, motorcycles ride like Pedro around his house and in some cases they lend themselves to armed robberies.”

They pointed out that “it is not only the absence of the previous offices of the Mayor's Office, but also, the Public Space Management and the Cartagena Institute of Heritage and Culture, IPCC, are notable for the lack of exercise of authority. Both formal and informal commerce take over public space, and for them, there is no control whatsoever. It is the empire of illegality.”

It should be remembered that crime in that area of Cartagena is overflowing, since a video was released that is circulating on social networks in which it is observed that late at night a group of street vendors take advantage of the little presence of the authorities to rob visitors and tourists from that neighborhood.

t is continuously used by a group of street vendors to rob visitors and tourists from this emblematic neighborhood in the historic center of Cartagena.

For his part, the president of the Community Action Board for this sector, Marcos Vargas, told Bluradio that “we are denouncing a rather delicate problem that we have in the neighborhood, where street vendors, under the modality of caveros, hide themselves as beer sellers and are selling drugs and robbing tourists (...) Community Action Board we are conducting information campaigns in Trinidad Square where we show the videos of the robberies and robberies to alert the community.”

He added that, over the course of last weekend, between Thursday and Sunday, there were at least 10 incidents of insecurity.