UN urges independent probe as death toll rises in Colombia unrest

An armed forces crackdown on protests that started in April-end against the government of Ivan Duque has drawn international condemnation

The UN on Sunday called for an independent investigation as over a dozen people were reported dead in fresh clashes a month into anti-government protests in Colombia that triggered a military deployment to the city of Cali.

Clashes late Friday pitted police against armed civilians, leaving 13 dead, according to officials, in Colombia's third largest city of 2.2 million people.

An armed forces crackdown on protests that started on April 28 against the government of President Ivan Duque has drawn international condemnation, and on Sunday, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced "deep concern" over the ongoing violence.

Read more: No end in sight as Colombia marks full month of protests

Bachelet's office cited reports from Cali that armed individuals, including an off-duty judicial police officer, had opened fire on demonstrators, journalists covering the protests and passers-by.

The policeman was subsequently beaten to death by a crowd, it said, and in parts of Cali civilians were seen firing shots at demonstrators in the presence of police officers.

According to reports received by Bachelet's office, 14 people died in the violence and 98 people were injured, 54 of them by firearms.

"It is essential that all those who are reportedly involved in causing injury or death, including state officials, are subject to prompt, effective, independent, impartial and transparent investigations and that those responsible are held accountable," the UN High Commissioner said in a statement.

In Cali, as across the country, poverty, joblessness, high unemployment and the fallout from the coronavirus epidemic have sparked widespread anger and resentment.

The protests were initially against a proposed tax increase Colombians said would leave them poorer even as they struggled with pandemic-related loss of income.

The proposal was quickly withdrawn, but the protests morphed into a wider denunciation of the government and its armed forces.

Official data shows 59 people have died in a month of unrest, with more than 2,300 civilians and uniformed personnel injured.

The NGO Human Rights Watch says it has "credible reports" of at least 63 deaths nationwide.

"I call for an end to all forms of violence, including vandalism, and for all sides to continue talking to each other, and to ensure respect for the life and dignity of all people," said Bachelet, a former Chilean president.

More than two weeks of talks between the government and protest leaders have yet to result in a settlement.

Duque, in Cali since Friday where he chaired a security meeting, ordered 7,000 troops to help clear and patrol blockaded roads countrywide, and deployed 1,141 soldiers to Cali.

On Saturday, the president was booed by a crowd as he appeared in public in the western city.

"He is a disgrace," one youth shouted, in tears, in a video circulating on social media.

A witness to the troubles in the neighborhood of Melendez told AFP a group was marking the one-month anniversary of the protests when "shots rang out."

"They started massacring people," said the 22-year-old who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, and claimed the shots came from five people in civilian clothes "hiding behind the trees."

Police said in a statement they would investigate claims that its members were "permissive with the actions of armed civilians".

In Colombia, the police fall under the command of the military.

Bachelet's office said it had received information of at least 30 people arrested in Cali since Friday, and highlighted concerns about the whereabouts of some of them.

"The fair trial and due process rights of those detained need to be ensured," the commissioner said.

Cali security secretary Carlos Rojas described scenes in the south of the city as "almost an urban war."

Some in Cali's poorer neighborhoods told AFP the military deployment to their city made them more fearful, not less.

"If something happens we cannot call the police because they are the ones who are killing," said Lina Gallegas, a 31-year-old community activist.

Luis Felipe Vega, a political scientist at Javeriana University, likened the deployment to "putting out a fire with gasoline."

Negotiations with protesters have partly been frustrated by forces in Duque's rightist Democratic Center party who prefer an iron-fist approach with elections a year away.

Colombia, meanwhile, reported a record daily coronavirus death toll of 540 amid the widespread social mobilization, bringing the toll to 87,747.