(4 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Micay canyon, Cauca, Colombia – 14 August 2024
1. Exterior of El Plateado Church; UPSOUND: loud bang
2. Residents of Cañon del Micay taking cover
3. Various of smoke billowing from a strike by Colombia’s army
4. Various of streets; UPSOUND: gunshots
5. Edilma Acuechantre outside her home
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Edilma Acuechantre, El Plateado resident and cocaine leaf scraper:
"And that hurts me a lot to have my children in this war, because you will see that they are dropping bombs.
Question: "Is it really very difficult?"
Answer: "It is very hard and this situation that I live is also lived by many, many people."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Micay canyon, Cauca, Colombia – 15 August 2024
7. Cañon del Micay mountain range
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Micay canyon, Cauca, Colombia – 14 August 2024
8. Banners of former FARC Chief Tiro Fijo
9. FARC graffiti on house
10. FARC-EMC dissidents
11. Various of FARC-EMC dissidents at road blocks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bogota, Colombia – 22 August 2024
12. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Andres Cajiao, ‘Ideas for Peace’ NGO Spokesperson:
"It is an area that allows you to access the Pacific for drug trafficking. To get the drugs out and also to bring in all kinds of things such as weapons. It is an important corridor of mobility to connect two important areas in terms of drug trafficking as well as the Nariño and Cauca (areas of Colombia)."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Micay canyon, Cauca, Colombia – 13 August 2024
13. Various of farmers scraping coca leaves
14. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Kevin Andres Arcos, President of El Plateado Community Council:
"You can say that if the only economy that sustains families is cocoa. But let’s say, there’s the bad thinking of those who are looking from the outside. And that is that everyone who grows coca bush is a drug trafficker and it’s a big lie. Why is that? Because, let’s say, if we were to look at the peasant farmer who is harvesting this coca bush, they live in very precarious situations."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Micay canyon, Cauca, Colombia – 13 August 2024
15. Various of peasants scraping coca leaves
STORYLINE:
The people who live in the Micay canyon, Colombia are in a perilous situation. Geographically in the municipality of Cauca they are situated in the middle of a corridor where drugs’ smugglers access the Pacific.
The steep canyon is full of coca leaf crops and is only accessible on windy unpaved roads. It is one of dozens of areas in rural Colombia where rebel groups have beefed up their presence over the past two years.
In the case of the Micay canyon, the group is a rebel faction which broke away from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
It is in defiance of President Gustavo Petro’s government policy of ‘total peace’.
The canyon has seen an uptick in violence, with the rebels using small drones, outfitted with home made bombs to launch attacks on military positions. While the army responds with heavy infantry.
At least two missiles fell within 100 metres of houses in El Plateado.
The army reported that the operation left insurgents wounded.
‘It is an area that allows you to access the Pacific to get drugs out, but also to bring in all kinds of things like weapons,’ Andrés Cajiao, coordinator of the Conflict and Peace Negotiations Unit of the Ideas for Peace Foundation, told The AP.
The area was dominated by the FARC until they laid down their arms in 2016, but in a power vacuum other armed groups quickly occupied the guerrilla space.
AP Video shot by Marko Alvarez
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