Twelve men found dead on beach
Police are searching for the killers of 12 young men whose bodies were found floating near a beach on Colombia’s Pacific coast, their hands tied behind their backs and each shot in the head.
The victims, residents of an impoverished neighbourhood in the port city of Buenaventura, disappeared on Tuesday after being lured onto a bus by unidentified persons allegedly offering them money to play in a football match. Ten were between the ages of 18 and 24, but two were only 15, police said.
Their partially decomposed bodies turned up yesterday, and forensic experts were trying to determine if they had been tortured, Toro said. He said it remained unclear who was behind the massacre.
Buenaventura Mayor Saul Quinones said the killings were likely linked to struggles for control of drug trafficking. Leftist rebels and outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups, which finance themselves through drug trafficking, both use the port to smuggle cocaine and heroin on small boats to other countries.
Three out of every four murders in the city, 215 miles south-west of Bogota, are drug-related, Quinones said.
Authorities have been forced to declare a night curfew in the most troubled neighbourhoods, Quinones said.
