In the town of Roldanillo, the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia on August 10 opened an unexpected fissure. The shifting of a structure in the local cemetery exposed skeletal remains, boots and camouflage clothing. Images circulated on social media, quickly fueling speculation that the remains might belong to victims of killings in which civilians were murdered by soldiers and falsely presented as guerrillas killed in combat. Known in Colombia as “false positives,” those crimes, committed on a massive scale two decades ago, remain one of the most painful legacies of the country’s decades-long armed conflict.
Although there is currently no evidence that the bodies belong to victims of those crimes, the agency responsible for searching for missing persons intervened at the cemetery and recovered “two skeletonized bodies” and nine bags containing camouflage-related items and boots. The discovery also raised concerns that the earthquake may have damaged sites that could hold crucial evidence about Colombia’s disappeared.
Colombia’s efforts to account for nearly 132,000 people who disappeared during the armed conflict could be set back by the earthquake. Alongside the 312 deaths, 4,548 injuries and 822 homes destroyed, there is now the risk that evidence crucial to locating missing persons could be lost.
According to the Working Group on Enforced Disappearance, which includes the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (Movice), the cemeteries of Roldanillo and Siloé in Valle del Cauca; San Camilo in Pereira, Risaralda, the two departments hardest hit by the quake; and those of Caramanta, Sonsón and Granada in Antioquia are considered at risk. Not all face the same level of danger. In some cases, damage and the exposure of human remains have already been reported; in others, organizations are urging authorities to inspect the condition of burial vaults.
“We are very concerned about the implications this could have for the long process of addressing enforced disappearances,” says Adriana Arboleda, a representative of Movice. “We are calling on the authorities to verify the condition of other sites in areas most heavily affected by the earthquake. For example, we currently do not know the condition of cemeteries in Chocó.”
Arboleda stressed that she understands that the immediate priority is rescuing those still trapped beneath the rubble, but she insists on the importance of inspecting cemeteries as well.
The Unit for the Search for Persons Deemed Missing (UBPD), a state agency created under the 2016 Peace Agreement, is already responding to the situation. It said that on the day of the earthquake, it launched a preliminary assessment of the damage to cemeteries in order to determine which sites require priority attention.
Three of the six cemeteries under alert are subject to precautionary measures ordered by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the transitional justice tribunal also created under the 2016 peace agreement, because they are believed to contain the remains of missing persons. They are the cemeteries of Sonsón, Caramanta and Granada, all in the department of Antioquia, one of the regions hardest hit by the conflict and the Colombian department with the highest number of recorded victims of enforced disappearance.
Roldanillo, the case that raised the alarm
In Roldanillo, the only site where remains have so far been uncovered, the presence of military clothing has opened a new line of inquiry.
“A humanitarian investigation to determine the identity, origin and possible link to the armed conflict of the remains will be assessed,” says the UBPD.
The agency said it carried out five humanitarian operations at the cemetery, including an assessment of the structure where the skeletal remains and associated items were located, as well as the recovery and packaging of the exposed remains, boots and camouflage clothing.
“In light of the discovery in Roldanillo and the damage reported in other cemeteries, the UBPD has been implementing humanitarian measures for the handling of human remains under its accidental discovery protocol, while also undertaking any transfers, custody arrangements and coordination required with the relevant authorities,” says Julián David Arias Quintero, the agency’s deputy forensic director, in a statement.
The discovery has one feature that particularly concerns victims’ organizations: according to Arboleda, the representative of the National Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, Roldanillo had not been identified as one of the priority cemeteries for searches.
“In our view, this is extremely serious,” she says. “The cemetery must be protected and secured to prevent the site from being disturbed and further information from being lost.”
For organizations working with victims of enforced disappearance, what happened in Roldanillo underscores the need to inspect more cemeteries, a demand they have been making for years. Arboleda says they raised concerns during the pandemic and, since 2024, have been asking the JEP for a broad protection order covering such sites.
According to Arboleda, a key problem is the lack of information. “There is no census,” she says. “There is no nationwide assessment of all cemeteries.”
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition
