La Macarena is a town and municipality in the

Meta Department Meta () is a department of Colombia. It is close to the geographic center of the country, to the east of the Andean mountains. A large portion of the department, which is also crossed by the Meta River, is covered by a grassland plain known ...

, located about 280 km (170 m) south of

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. The town was included in the former El Caguan DMZ. Now, back in the control of

Colombian Army The National Army of Colombia () is the land warfare service branch of the Military Forces of Colombia. With over 361,420 active personnel as of 2020, it is the largest and oldest service branch in Colombia, and is the second largest army in the ...

and Police Force, the town is a growing

Ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of nature-oriented tourism intended to contribute to the Ecological conservation, conservation of the natural environment, generally defined as being minimally impactful, and including providing both contributions to conserv ...

destination, particularly for the five coloured river Caño Cristales considered one of the most beautiful in the world. La Macarena is served by La Macarena Airport.

Unidentified corpses and allegations of a mass grave

In January 2010, ''

El Nuevo Herald ''El Nuevo Herald'' is a newspaper published daily in Spanish in Southeast Florida, United States. Its headquarters is in Doral. ''El Nuevo Heralds sister paper is the ''Miami Herald'', also produced by the McClatchy Company. About ''el Nuevo ...

'' reported that local villagers had announced the discovery of a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

allegedly containing almost 2,000 unidentified corpses in the La Macarena cemetery, apparently containing bodies that had been taken there by the

and presented as guerrilla combat casualties. Villagers interviewed by the newspaper suspected that relatives who had previously disappeared during the last few years would have been buried at the site and denied that they were guerrillas. Colombian officials and prosecutors called for further inquiries into the matter. The Inspector General sent investigators into the area and the Attorney General's Office announced an additional probe. In August 2010, '' Tribune Magazine'' reported that an international delegation made up of politicians, lawyers and labor unionists led by the UK-based Justice for Colombia NGO visited the site to take part in a public hearing. According to Justice for Colombia, locals provided reports and evidence of

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...

s by the Colombian military. Colombian President

Álvaro Uribe Álvaro Uribe Vélez (born 4 July 1952) is a Colombian politician who served as the 31st President of Colombia from 7 August 2002 to 7 August 2010. Uribe started his political career in his home department of Antioquia Department, Antioquia. H ...

rejected the delegation's presence and accused its members of slandering the Colombian Army. In September 2010, the

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Univers ...

visited the La Macarena site and confirmed 446 unidentified bodies that had been reported as guerrillas killed in combat since 2002 were buried in a

graveyard A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

but did not find signs of a

nor of any clandestine burials. A report by UN officials called for the identification of the bodies and confirming whether or not human rights violations had been committed. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed its concerns "about the lack of effective controls and adequate records regarding reports of people killed in combat, which raises questions about the circumstances surrounding their deaths." The Colombian Defense Ministry acknowledged the UN's findings and stated that it would support any subsequent investigations.UNHCHR: 446 unidentified bodies buried in Meta graveyard
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Climate

References

External links

{{Coord, 2, 10, 58, N, 73, 47, 5, W, display=title Municipalities of Meta Department Mass graves