Colombian Army persecutes health promoter in the settlement of Notepases, in the Cimitarra River Valley

27.01.07

On December 27th, 2006 at 11 AM, an armed man in a FARC uniform approached Sandra Castro, resident of Notepases, community health leader, and collaborator with the Hector Abad Gomez Hospital in Yondó, and forced her to accompany him and attend to a sick woman.

That night Sandra Castro attended the woman, who had a fever as well as body aches and a wound on her arm. The next day Sandra was released and returned to the settlement accompanied by an elderly man.

The canoe in which Sandra returned was stopped by a FARC deserter who threatened to turn the passengers over to the Army. He would not allow the canoe to stop in the settlement of Notepases, threatening to shoot at the people waiting in the port.

After Sandra asked that they be freed, the deserter left them on a beach on the shore of the Cimitarra River. Sandra and the elderly man returned to Notepases. On December 28th, Sandra travelled to Barrancabermeja.

On December 30th, the same deserter came to Notepases with soldiers of the Calibio Battalion, asking for Sandra and saying that she was “a guerrilla nurse and the mistress of a guerrilla fighter”. Her house was searched without a warrant.

In the following days, soldiers showed a list of names compiled by paramilitaries, including the “guerrilla nurse”.

Since then, Sandra has become one of the millions of internally displaced people in Colombia, and Notepases remains without a health promoter, in a region where medical attention is practically nonexistant.

The Colombian Army persecutes, intimidates, and threatens a woman, mother of one, trained by the Colombian government to attend to the campesino population. Medical professionals have the duty to attend to all people regardless of their political affiliations or belonging to armed groups.

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