By Carolina Calero, CAMBIOColombia, December 19, 2024
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
This past December 18 was the day they found the first remains of human bones in La Escombrera (The Garbage Dump) in the 13th Ward in Medellín. We are going to tell you how important this find is, because of the role the place has played in the history of the violence and armed conflict in Antioquia and in Colombia.
On December 18, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons (UBPD in Spanish) announced the discovery of the first remains of human bones in La Escombrera, which is located in Medellín’s 13th Ward. The remains could be those of the victims of the armed conflict who disappeared after Operation Orion.
The discovery took place while the technical team was working with earth moving equipment to stabilize the earth that they were searching. When the remains were found, the work was suspended immediately, so that the forensic team could examine the area. After verification, they were able to confirm that there were human remains, including clothing, associated with the search for at least two individuals.
President Gustavo Petro used the occasion to remember, in a post he made on X, the time the Congress referred to what it described as “the massacre of the 13th Ward”. He related how a taxi driver who was a witness had been able to escape being murdered, and had reported the existence of common graves in La Escombrera.
“They tried to shoot Juan Carlos Tanus at the edge of La Escombrera, and he had seen them throwing the bodies of young people that lived in the 13th Ward into this place,” the President tweeted.
President Petro’s post on X:
“I was part of the debate in Congress about the massacre in Medellín’s 13th Ward. A taxi driver from there, who escaped being executed by a member of the CTI[1] had to go into exile after the debate, and I helped him. He reported the existence of common graves there . . .”
La Escombrera has been converted into a symbol of the pain caused by its apparent use for the burial of the remains of the people who disappeared in the violence of the armed conflict in Medellín. Ever since Operation Orion, the families of those people have charged that this location is possibly a mass grave. Even though that had not been proved until this most recent discovery of the real existence of human remains, the victims’ loved ones are maintaining the hope that this is the place where they might find answers and close a chapter of their suffering.
Operation Orion: What happened here in the 13th Ward?
According to the Truth Commission, on October 16, 2002, the Álvaro Uribe Vélez administration, together with the Mayor’s Office in Medellín, planned an urban military offensive intended to eradicate the presence of guerrilla groups along with common crime in the 13th Ward, an area of the capital of Antioquia submerged in crime. This operation was named Operation Orion.
The operation involved more than 1,500 members of the Armed Forces, including the Army, the Police, and intelligence forces. Although at the time, the administration described the military offensive as a success in the fight against crime, for the inhabitants of the Ward, it marked the commencement of an era of terror and of violations of human rights.
According to the Truth Commission, the first two days were the most intense, and included arbitrary arrests, selective detentions, and then, disappearances. For its part, the Center for Historical Memory points out that the military offensive extended through the month of November and into the early days of December.
Regarding the number of victims, the Political Violence Data Bank of the Center for Investigation and Popular Education (CINEP in Spanish) has found 38 injured, 8 disappeared, and one registered death of a member of the civilian population.
In addition to that, ten guerrillas, one Police officer, and two soldiers were among the dead, and five Police officers and nine soldiers were injured. Also, there were more than 150 searches, resulting in the arrest of 355 people. For its part, the JEP has registered more than 200 disappeared during this military operation.
In spite of the fact that the military operation in the 13th Ward was described as a strategic defeat of the guerrillas in Medellín, that was not the end of the armed conflict, nor of the power and influence of the illegal actors in this sector. Shortly after Operation Orion, the Cacique Nutibara Bloc of the Self-Defense Forces occupied the space left behind by the previous criminal groups until they were demobilized in December of 2003.
The clandestine cemetery in La Escombrera
La Escombrera is a piece of land located in the high part of Ward 13. It contains approximately 17 hectares. For decades, it has been used to deposit construction waste, which makes excavation or the search for human remains difficult. However, the testimonies of former paramilitaries and of relatives of disappeared people do point to the place as having been used as a common grave during and after Operation Orion.
Statistics about the number of people who might be buried there are uncertain. In spite of efforts to clarify events, the difficulty in deep exploration of the terrain have hampered the search process. In 2020, the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons (UBPD) and the JEP established a five-stage plan for the technical-forensic exploration of the location.
According to the UBPD, “we have used specialized civil engineering and geophysics techniques that set a precedent in the search for disappeared persons,” since there are very few cases in the world that have the same characteristics as La Escombrera.
Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons post on X
“The UBPDColombia forensic teams and the Forensic Technical Support Group (GATEF) of the JEP, with the support of the Office of the Mayor of Medellín since July 29, 2024, have put in place the “Inter-agency plan for forensic intervention in La Escombrera—Phase V”
[1] CTI is the Technical Investigation Corps, part of the Attorney General’s Office