📸 ‘Tense calm’ in Necoclí, Tren de Aragua and more
Hello!
"A tense calm reigns in Necoclí," Sergio Ortíz Borbolla, documentary photographer and co-founder of In.Visibles, told me this week. The town, located on the shores of the Gulf of Urabá in Colombia and a key point on the route that hundreds of thousands of migrants take every year on their way to the United States, is controlled by the Gulf Clan, one of the most powerful criminal organisations in Latin America.
Entire families live for weeks, even months, in tents on the beach as they wait their turn to be taken through the Darien jungle in Panama. Sergio spoke to many of them as part of a visit he made with a team from the Washington Office on Latin America. You can see some of the photos here.
While the Colombian government offers little protection in the area, Panama's new president, José Raúl Mulino, who during the campaign promised to "close the Darién Gap", has just signed an agreement with the US government to facilitate deportations from the country (this article by Jordana Timerman provides an excellent summary of the issue).
This week, we also bring you the most important news to understand the impact of organised crime in Latin America.
Thank you very much for reading and see you next week!
Josefina
1. 🇻🇪 Sanctions. The US government on Thursday announced financial sanctions against the Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal gang whose expansion throughout the region has governments on edge. The State Department is offering a $12 million reward for information leading to the arrest of its fugitive leaders, including Hector "Niño" Guerrero, who escaped from the Tocorón prison just before a police raid last year. With this, the Tren de Aragua will join - along with El Salvador's MS-13 gang and Italy's Camorra - a list of groups considered "transnational criminal organisations" whose members will not be allowed to do business in the United States. Since its emergence in theTocorón prison 10 years ago, the Tren de Aragua has expanded its criminal portfolio –which now includes extortion, human and drug trafficking, contract killings and money laundering-- by exploiting the wave of people migrating to escape Venezuela's humanitarian crisis. The group, which operates as a federation of gangs, has a presence in countries including Peru, Ecuador and Chile. The United States is not the only country taking action against the criminal gang. The governments of Chile and Colombia are also strengthening cooperation ties that have resulted in major arrests, as Valentina Parada Lugo of El País reported.
2. 🇪🇨 34 years and eight months. This is the sentence that Carlos Angulo and Laura Castilla received for orchestrating the murder of Ecuadorian journalist and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on 9 August 2023. Three other people were sentenced to 12 years in prison for aiding and abetting the attack, the BBC reported. Angulo, the alleged leader of the Los Lobos gang, was accused of ordering the attack from prison, where he is serving a 54-year sentence, although he says he is innocent and only a "scapegoat". Before he was shot dead in broad daylight, Villavicencio said he was being threatened, although the authorities have not yet been able to establish a motive for the crime. Daniel Noboa's government has responded to the explosion of violence in Ecuador with an iron fist policy, which has been criticised by human rights organisations.
3. 🇸🇻 265 deaths in detention. This is the human cost of the repressive security policies of Nayib Bukele's government in El Salvador, according to a new report by the human rights organisation Cristosal, published on Wednesday. The document is the result of a two-year investigation into the impact of the government's measures in the context of the emergency regime it established two and a half years ago and which remains in effect. Of the 265 deaths the organisation identified through court documents, forensic medical examinations and testimonies, four were children. "The report demonstrates with abundant and undeniable evidence the massive and systematic human rights violations during the state of emergency, including arbitrary detentions, violations of due process, torture and deaths of people in state custody and their grave impact on the poorest families in the country, in particular women and children," Noah Bulock, director of Cristosal told Bryal Avelar of El País.
4. 🇨🇴 36 percent. That's the drop in deforestation in Colombia in 2023 compared to the previous year, officials said on Monday. The figure, which marks the lowest level since records began 23 years ago, is mainly due to the slowdown in the destruction of the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest. Experts say the drop is due to orders from dissident groups of the demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). While welcoming the news, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said the figures for this year are not so promising. She said extensive cattle ranching, illegal mining and logging as well as illicit crops, along with the climate emergency continue to cause high levels of deforestation, AP reported.
5. 🇭🇹 Under Control. Haiti's interim Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the main hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday after police regained control of the building that had been taken over by gangs earlier this year. Haiti's police chief, Normil Rameau, had made the announcement a day earlier, accompanied by Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan police chief in the Caribbean country, who is part of an international mission that arrived in the country to help restore order. Violence at the hands of gangs that still control much of the capital, has brought the health system to the brink of collapse at a time when it is needed more than ever. Poor hygiene conditions in camps for people displaced by violence have led to the spread of diseases such as cholera, according to information from UNICEF.
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Other top reads of the week
The hard road for Colombia's wounded ex-combatants (Glaeldys González Calanche, International Crisis Group)
Colombia's ex-guerrillas traded war for rafting. Now dissidents are forcing them out (Luke Taylor, The Guardian)
Indigenous community protests against construction of Noboa's mega-prison (Carolina Mella, El País)
MS13 chief to testify in court in New York and may compromise Nayib Bukele (Héctor Silva Ávalos, Infobae)