During the morning of this Thursday, April 21, some members of the Personería de Medellín staff began to show symptoms of respiratory problems: they pointed out that they had a headache, dizziness, nausea, stuffy ears, burning eyes and throat.
After 14 people had symptoms, the staff called the Medellin Fire Department at 10:10 in the morning. José Arles Alzate, a firefighter at the Libertadores Station, told local newspaper El Colombiano that relief personnel felt “a smell like pungent” as they entered the headquarters on the first floor of Plaza La Libertad, a building next to La Alpujarra: they inhaled an irritant substance through their nostrils.
The relief agency gave the order to evacuate the site while it was being ascertained which substance caused these symptoms and, if possible, to ventilate the space. Carlos Muñoz, deputy director of Disaster Management of the Administrative Department for Disaster Risk Management (Dagrd), noted that the Personería facilities are closed and both the public and employees are vulnerable to inhaling any particulate matter that circulates there.
The agency then asked to close the premises so as not to expose the public to the unknown material, as well as to carry out “another complete recirculation of the air conditioning and a new cleaning”.
After an inspection, they did not detect any gas leaks or the presence of flammable or potentially explosive substances. In addition, no other floor of the building needed to be evacuated or attended to.
The hypothesis used by the firefighters is that the irritation felt by them and the workers of the Personería de Medellín was due to the inhalation of pepper spray, although it is not yet explained how the substance got there.
It was estimated that the irritating material would dissipate after noon and that the employees of the Personería would be able to resume their duties around two in the afternoon. However, at eight o'clock in the evening a new statement was issued by the Personería, in which they state that, “it was determined that the emergency still persists to a lesser degree”.
For this reason, the Personería announced that its Permanent Unit for Human Rights, an office that operates 24 hours a day, will not serve on the night of 21 April. However, they made available an e-mail and the website www.personeriamedellin.gov.co to deal with cases where immediate attention is required.
The auxiliary person from Medellín, Olga Lucia Rodríguez, took advantage of the emergency to ask the authorities to relocate the headquarters where the Personería currently operates. According to her, the site where they operate today does not meet the conditions necessary to serve the community in a dignified manner.
Rodríguez told El Colombiano that the Personería does not have the resources to pay a lease for an office in a different place, much less buy a property. So, they ask the Mayor's Office of Medellin to attend to their claims.
One thing that supports the demands of these workers is a ruling of a guardianship action imposed against the Mayor's Office of Medellín and the personería itself. This judicial decision holds these two entities responsible for any harm suffered by employees, since the rights to health and public health would be violated there.
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