Police in the Manuel José Ramírez neighborhood of the municipality of Pradera (Valle del Cauca), on September 29, in images distributed on social networks.
What seemed like a family day for Hurtado López turned into a tragedy. In the Manuel José Ramírez neighborhood of the municipality of Pradera, in the south of the Valle del Cauca, Eiling Mariana Hurtado López learned to ride a bicycle with her mother. Without warning, numerous police officers arrived with the intention of arresting Julián Moreno, alias Consumo. The three-year-old girl’s father, who was there, told local media that authorities fired indiscriminately and that one of those bullets killed his daughter. Mariana’s mother was injured, lost some fingers on one hand and remains under medical supervision.
The police version is different. Jesús Enrique Quintero, head of the facility in this department, said that they were looking for the murder suspect. And that during the operation “an exchange of fire occurred in which a minor was injured, who later died as a result of the severity of her injuries.”
Lawyer Ali Bantú Ashanti from the group Racial Justice represented the family. The lawyer told W Radio that police violence against the Afro-Colombian population in Pradera was a recurring occurrence and was clearly racist. Mariana was Afro. “They didn’t help her, they walked over her body, they hit several children,” he says. He added: “The police are killing us because we are poor and black.” Residents who witnessed the shooting shouted insults at the uniformed officers, as shown in the image Social media videos. “These police officers shot a girl. Why are you doing that? Why are they doing this?” repeats a visibly outraged man in one of them as he records the officials and the people who complain to them.
The police officers pointed out that the entire community had seen them. How do these legal representatives justify the murder of the girl Mariana? pic.twitter.com/yGdxA3pZQj
— Ali Bantu Ashanti (@bantuashanti) September 29, 2023
The residents of Pradera have been victims of violence by various armed actors. Milton Andrés Perlaza, a 17-year-old teenager, died June 28 after apparently being shot by a police officer. The facility said he was a criminal, something his family and some neighbors have disputed. Lawyer Ashanti explains that the investigation into the death has not progressed three months later.
A few days later, in the town of El Nogal, in the Pradera countryside, indigenous leader and candidate for local council Luis Eduardo Timaná was assassinated. According to indigenous authorities, those responsible could be the dissident group of the extinct FARC called Segunda Marquetalia, led by Iván Márquez, or the paramilitary groups known as Águilas Negras, which had already threatened the leader.
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The deaths in Pradera are part of a larger deterioration in the southwest of the country. According to INDEPAZ, in 2023 ten massacres were recorded in Valle del Cauca alone, another five in Cauca, the neighboring department 10 kilometers from this municipality.
To demand justice for Eiling Mariana, the population of the neighborhood where the incident occurred called for a demonstration this Friday afternoon with white bombs and chanting “Children don’t touch each other.” So far the national government has not commented on this. Meanwhile, Racial Justice is promoting the #JusticiaParaMariana trend on the platform
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