It has been reported that a total of 285 people were killed in the first four months of the year in the states bordering Colombia and Brazil, where many illegal activities from illegal mining operations to drug smuggling are experienced.
According to the report published by FundaRedes, a human rights organization that investigates murders, armed conflicts, kidnappings and disappearances in border states, at least 56 people were killed in 24 armed conflicts in border states last month; There is no news from 23 people.
According to Clara Ramirez, executive director of FundaRedes, the main cause of violence in border states is the struggle for dominance of space between high-powered cartels and criminal organizations to control the billions of dollars in illegal activities, either among themselves or with the security forces.
According to the United Nations data, approximately 250 tons of cocaine, that is, 30-40 billion dollars, passes through Venezuela illegally annually to be sent to other countries from Colombia, where 70 percent of the world’s cocaine is produced. When items such as illegal mining, oil smuggling, women’s trafficking and prostitution, human smuggling and organ trade in Venezuela’s border regions are added to these activities, both the size of the market to be seized and the extent of the violence increase.
Speaking to VOA Turkish, Ramirez says 95 of the 229 killings committed in the border regions in the first quarter of this year occurred in the state of Zulia. Ramirez states that in Zulia, where criminal organizations have increased their activities in recent years, most of the victims are breeders and business owners kidnapped for ransom. Ramirez says that the gangs, who could not get the extortion and ransom they wanted, increased the extent of violence from beheading and exhibiting in the squares to throwing bombs at their workplaces.
“Violence fuels the authority vacuum at the borders”
Ramirez points out that armed criminal organizations have been concentrated on the borders recently, and that violence and deaths have inevitably increased in parallel with illegal activities in areas where state authority and laws are not in force.
Ramirez says, “The failure of the state to implement a comprehensive policy to ensure border security and the fact that some individuals and groups within the state have direct or indirect interests with these criminal organizations increase the cases of killing in border regions,” adding that the state is primarily responsible for this situation.
The number of armed conflicts recorded in the first four months of this year rose to 94. Last year, a total of 317 conflicts took place in these states and 439 people were killed.