Running away for a living, 30 years after a bullet and garrotazos massacre in a Colombian university

Every year Barranquilla says goodbye to its most memorable festival, mourning the death of Joselito Carnaval, who symbolizes the end of folklore, rumba, revelry and dance: a goodbye full of enthusiasm for those who hope to see him enjoying himself again, but which in 1992 was forgotten by an atrocious event that shook Colombian society.

The Atlantic capital experienced the chilling event that ended the lives of eleven people and unraveled one of the darkest and most terrible secrets of one of the most recognized universities on the Caribbean coast. This time there were no tears for Joselito's departure, there was indignation...

And it is because of necessity you can fall into the trap. It is for this reason that the case, which was the scene of the Free University of Barranquilla in February 1992, has such a profound impact that to this day the history of an institution, which was responsible for training professionals at the cost of death, continues to resonate to this day.

On Saturday, February 29, 1992, Barranquilla was celebrating in the middle of its traditional carnival. Party, music and dance were the main protagonists in social venues and homes, while, in the streets, desolation was the main protagonists. Oscar Rafael Hernández López, a 24-year-old street dweller, was wandering around looking for some cartons and cans so he could sell them and thus receive some money for his daily livelihood.

While passing by the vicinity of the Free University, Hernández was approached by a man in a red shirt, who told him that in the back of the institution there were some materials that could be useful to him. Without thinking twice, he accepted the offer and entered the place where many, like him, could not leave.

The man, who was with four other people, opened the door of the university and pointed to the place where the cardboard boxes were. Oscar arrived at the scene, bent down and began to pile them up to pick them up, but in a loud way he felt a strong blow to the head that knocked him to the ground. Stunned and not understanding what happened, he endured the stunts of those who indicated the “opportunity to work”, he cried out in pain when they hit one of his arms with a stick, until some of the people who were there gave the order: “Now let's shoot him” and the sound of the shot dispelled all noise in the place. He closed his eyes and seconds later the fear and pain he felt reminded him that he was still breathing, so in a very wise decision he decided to pretend he was dead.

He was dragged on the floor and put in a cold room and placed on an aluminum table while one of his perpetrators said: “We need one to complete the quota.” Fear, anxiety and uncertainty quieted the pain he felt in his body, until again there were screams and moans coming from outside. They opened the door and placed another fallen in disgrace on one of the tables. Another perpetrator said: “Now we are ready, we have to start now. Let's get to work”, to which one more replied that they could “finish the rest of the work tomorrow”, a discussion that ended with the men turning off the lights and closing the doors of the place. A decision that for Hernández became an opportunity to live.

He waited for a few hours to make sure no one was in the place, opened his eyes and saw what looked like a scene from a horror movie, blood on the walls, lifeless bodies, buckets of human remains, buckets of formaldehyde, a huge knife and a stick of blood. He spotted another street dweller who was quite beaten and did not move, he thought he was dead. He took a knife, the stick and decided to flee the place. He tried to get out of the window but couldn't, he approached the door and realized that it was open, so he fled in terror from the place, climbed a wall and reached a police station where he told what happened. “They tried to kill me in college! I was shot and I looked at my head and my left arm,” he said.

Despite the officer's disbelief, he accompanied Hernández to the Free University of Barranquilla, but they did not let him in, which generated suspicion. The policeman communicated by radio and called for reinforcements that finally around 7 in the morning... They were about to discover a massacre that claimed the lives of several street dwellers and whose bodies became material for scientific study for the students of the academy.

Police officers ran into walls with blood dripping through, scattered human remains, viscera in buckets and the lifeless bodies of ten people and even the street dweller that Oscar observed when he escaped, the one who clung to life with a sigh.

In the midst of the confusion and shock faced by the cops, they called an ambulance in the hope that this poor wretch would escape the hands of death. Thus, Barranquilla woke up to one of the darkest news in its history.

This is how the authorities learned firsthand the chilling case of the murder of several street dwellers who were turned into material for scientific study and objects of the black market of organ sales. Studies of the corpses determined that eight were killed with blunt weapons and another three by the impact of a bullet.

The news shook the country and the world because of the coldness with which the events were committed. Investigations by the authorities showed that security guards to managers of the alma mater were involved in this chilling enterprise of death.

While the investigations were carried out, the educational institution was closed. Several street dwellers gathered to protest the death of their comrades in misfortune, while the students of the university did the same in order for classes to resume. Two different causes created by the same tragedy.

The authorities captured Pedro Antonio Viloria Leal (head of security), Wilfrido Arias Ternera and Armando Segundo Urieles Sierra, Saúl Hernández Otero (vigilantes), who were responsible for stalking, hunting, violating and killing the unsuspecting people who, without having anything, were looking in the corners of the streets for a cardboard or a tin to give them one opportunity. Another of those involved and a key person in the events was Santander Sabalza Estrada, the one in charge of the amphitheater, and therefore the one who prepared, quartered and preserved the bodies. The university's trustee, Eugenio Casto Ariza, pointed out to be the brains behind the murders, also turned himself in to the authorities.

Although Pedro Viloria tried to commit suicide inside the university and in the midst of his agony he shouted that he had garroted 50 people on orders of the director, he later recanted and said that it was all the product of a hallucinatory trance. Saúl Hernández, who was singled out as the man in the red shirt who invited Oscar Rafael to pick up the cardboard inside the university and then try to kill him, said, in the first instance that Sabalza would have proposed that they kill some street dwellers and thus receive 120,000 pesos (just over 1,300,000 to date). However, in the inquiry before the judge he changed his version of events.

In November 1993, those involved in the case were released due to expiry of terms, including Castro Ariza, former trustee of the university, who was acquitted, while the educational institution was not linked to the facts.

Eight years after the massacre that took place inside the Barranquilla Unilibre, the Second Criminal Court of the Circuit sentenced the vigilantes to thirteen years in prison as responsible for the attacks with firearms and garrotes.

Guillermo León Mejía Álvarez, Elizabeth Escobar Pacheco, María Rosalba Hidalgo Mejía, Miguel Antonio Barroso Vásquez, Javier Enrique Rojas Contreras, Álvaro De Jesús Tabares Vasquez, (other people could not be recognized) are some of the names of those helpless whose only tangible memory they leave of their existence are the replicas of their faces made in plaster by Medicina Legal. According to some experts of the time, 50 victims could not be recognized and their deaths went unpunished.

Only those who got their hands dirty with blood and sweat were pointed out, the minds behind barbarism did not respond. As is often the case in Colombia, justice ignored those who had nothing to lose... only their lives.

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