Video: Ruthless paramilitaries kill 12 innocent members of Maria's family in 19 years over land disp
Video: Ruthless paramilitaries kill 12 innocent members of Maria's family in 19 years over land disputes
Mar 04, 2014 08:52
RECORD reporter Paul O'Hare has been in war-torn Colombia with aid charity SCIAF who are helping families to reclaim their land following violent clashes with renegade soldiers.
MARIA Gomez was just nine when she was forced to flee her home after her father and two uncles were decapitated by paramilitaries. Two years later six members of her family were murdered in a single massacre. The atrocity saw two of her uncles join the Army but they were killed while on leave. And in November, while Maria was receiving psychological support, another uncle was shot dead over a land dispute. The 19 year killing spree has claimed 12 lives and devastated many more.
Today Maria, 28, suffers from panic attacks but SCIAF, Scotland’s aid agency, is helping her to come to terms with the horrors in her past. She told The Record: “I think about what has become of my family. “If I could form my own army and get revenge I would do it.”
Her traumatic life story dates back to 1994 when paramilitaries stormed the family’s 700 hectare farm in San Pedro Uraba. Maria - who did not want us to use her real name - said: “My father and two uncles were taken away, tortured and killed. “Their heads were chopped off.
More:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/conflict-zone-day-3-ruthless-3205041
