Cauca, the Colombian region where the state is under attack: There is no one to hold accountable for our dead'

"The Central General Staff, a dissident group of the FARC guerrillas that didn't join the 2016 peace agreement, stopped them on the road. It would have been just another of the checkpoints that illegal groups carry out daily throughout much of the country, but it ended in one of the worst attacks in decades: the armed group detonated a gas cylinder bomb that, according to the dissidents, was intended for a military contingent. Daniela's body and those of her neighbors were disfigured and had to be mourned in closed caskets."

Adults in Maria Zenaida Puliche’s home struggled to hold back tears as Sofia turned nine and posed for pictures with a strawberry cake. Sofia hugged her father, aunts, and cousins, but not her mother. Daniela Valencia, one of 22 victims killed on April 25 in Cauca, was returning home to rural Cajibio when a bomb exploded on the Pan-American Highway. She traveled with neighbors on Ciro Puliche’s bus to sell coffee, plantain, and panela. After a dental appointment, she bought a whiteboard and markers for her daughter’s birthday. A dissident FARC group stopped the bus at a checkpoint and detonated a gas cylinder bomb, disfiguring bodies and forcing mourning in closed caskets.

Read at english.elpais.com