Colombian authorities have completed the first phase of an excavation that could unearth what may be the country's largest mass grave.
Local authorities in Medellín exhumed four bodies in the Escombrera landfill, which belong to victims of forced disappearances in the early 2000s.
The grim discovery was made in the city's western Comuna 13 neighborhood, an epicenter of armed violence during the time when Medellin's was the world's murder capital.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, urban battles raged between leftist militias and state security forces, who worked in tandem with right-wing paramilitary death squads.
These paramilitary groups, among them a bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), were responsible for detaining, torturing, disappearing and killing hundreds of people, including civilians.
Violence peaked in 2002 during the infamous Operation Orion, in which government military forces and paramilitaries laid siege to Comuna 13.
According to Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the mechanism attempting to provide justice in the country's decades-long armed conflict, some 435 people went missing in the district between 1978 and 2016. The Corporación Jurídica Libertad, a human rights NGO, estimates that 100 of these disappearances occurred in just two days during Operation Orion.
For years, families of the victims in Comuna 13 have called on the government to excavate the Escombrera dump, which they claimed was used by paramilitary forces to dispose of bodies.
But it was not until last June that the JEP began excavation work.
The Latin Times was given access to the Escombrera, a vast complex in the mountains overlooking Medellin. The site is piled high with rubble and refuse from years of use as an industrial dump, with the exception of a broad clearing where the excavation took place.
The JEP, alongside the Missing Persons Search Unit (UBPD), undertook a massive operation to look for bodies in the Escombrera, extracting over 37,000 cubic meters of debris and soil from the site.
Investigators led press up a hill and to a ledge overlooking the zone where the bodies were exhumed, pointing out four neatly outlined graves where bones were discovered.
They told us that they had found remains belonging to at least four people, later identified as forcibly disappeared by paramilitary groups from 2002 to 2003.
A week later, the JEP provided details about the identity of two of the victims, both Comuna 13 locals.
One was a 20-year-old woman who organized a sports club for youth in the area. The other was a disabled 28-year-old street vendor.
"Neither had a criminal record, investigations, convictions, nor appeared in intelligence files. They were people completely uninvolved in the Colombian armed conflict," read the JEP report.
The identification of the two victims can bring closure to families whose loved ones went missing over 20 years ago. But it also brings back difficult memories for local residents as the community remains deeply affected by the trauma.
"This is very painful because these are people that we might have known," Jasmín, a Comuna 13 resident, told The Latin Times near the Escombrera.
She described how armed groups often forcibly disappeared people they did not recognize, concerned they were members of a rival group disguised as civilians.
All Comuna 13 residents who spoke with The Latin Times said they had some connection to victims of the violence. They agreed to speak only if their full names would not be used.
The findings at the Escombrera also triggered a fresh sense of bitterness and frustration towards the state. Residents complain that it took officials far too long to tell them what they already knew: that bodies were buried at the Escombrera.
Jasmín expressed her sympathy for the mothers whose pleas fell on deaf ears for two decades. "At this late stage of life, moms are still waiting to find out something about their loved ones... it's a very big frustration," she said.
The delay in excavating the Escombrera has fueled deep-seated distrust and skepticism towards the government. Claudia, another lifelong Comuna 13 resident, told The Latin Times she believes the state values money above all else. "It's very sad, because the government, I believe, prioritizes material considerations more than the value of people's lives," said Claudia.
Despite Medellin's homicide rate recently reaching its lowest level in 82 years, crime remains a concern for locals.
"I think there is a lot lacking from the government. And not only in relation to the Escombrera... the government has a long way to go to control what goes on in Comuna 13," Claudia said.
She described how crime and disappearances are a daily occurrence in the neighborhood, criticizing the government for failing to address the roots of the problem. Poverty perception appears to have surged in recent years in Medellin, with 31% of residents self-identifying as poor in 2021, the highest level since 2006.
Another resident, Oscar, who has lived next to the Escombrera since the 1980s, condemned what he sees as endemic corruption.
"Since before Operation Orion, long before, there has not been an honest president. They have all been corrupt," he told The Latin Times.
For Comuna 13's older generation, years of insecurity have irreparably fractured their trust in the state and they have a pessimistic outlook on the community's ability to overcome cyclical violence.
"This will go on, this will go on. If they kill someone, another one follows... it will never end," lamented Jasmín.
But despite tensions between residents and officials, the discoveries at the Escombrera bring some relief to families who have searched for loved ones for so long.
Margarita Restrepo, who has been searching for her daughter since 2002, praised the JEP's findings.
"The most satisfying thing is that the anguish of a family that has been suffering for years, searching for their loved one, is going to end," she said in a statement released by the JEP.
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