Victim of armed conflict claims compensation for son's death in 1997

A Family Court in Santa Marta admitted the guardianship of Enrique del Carmen Castillo, in order to access the compensation promised by the Victims Unit since 2020. According to the facts, his son was killed in 1997 by armed groups in Aracataca (Magdalena), in the context of the armed conflict in Colombia.

This story was released by El Espectador on Friday, April 15. The media investigation indicates that Castillo has been waiting 25 years for a response from the Attorney General's Office. In 2011, after Law 1448 was passed, he took his case to the Victims Unit.

The entity, after reviewing Carmen Castillo's file, endorsed her compensation twice. The first time was in June 2020, by 50%; and in November 2021, by 25%. Despite this, he has not been able to obtain a single weight and, therefore, he supervised the Unit, said the information in the national newspaper.

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In his statements, the man said: “I don't know what happened to the compensation. One is illiterate. You don't know if you're deceived or not deceived. I've never been called for payments or anything. That's a lie. In no bank has there been any money in my name. The family gives me money. Friends give me ten, give me five. They give me the ticket. Some give me the food, others give me the sleeping one.”

A resolution of the Victims Unit in November 2021, would have prioritized his payment and recognized him as a highly vulnerable person. In the resolution, the entity states that since June 2020 Castillo has been able to obtain its compensation, however, the percentage allocated “was not collected”. Therefore, the resources returned to the Ministry of Finance.

In its edition of this Good Friday, El Espectador, indicated that the Santa Marta Court agreed to study the petition and verify whether Castillo's rights to petition, due process and minimum vital have been violated.

Among the first determinations of the togado, the director of the Unit for Victims, Ramón Alberto Rodríguez, would be asked, together with the institution's offices, to prepare a complete and detailed report on the guardianship action.

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Victims and Land Restitution Act

Law 1448 of 2011 is what opens the doors of reparation to victims of armed conflict and that is why not only is the Unit for Victims created, but also the Land Restitution Unit was created, which began operating in January 2012.

Ten years after the sanction, judges and magistrates of the Special Jurisdiction for Land Restitution have issued 6,422 judgments ordering (or denying) the restitution of 12,130 requests for restitution. The system has denied most requests (65 per cent) at the administrative stage of the process.

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