Colombia/El Salvador: Roman Catholic priests continue to be assassinated

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Colombia | 22 April 2018

According to El Heraldo reporting on 10 March 2018, a Roman Catholic priest was killed by suffocation when unknown intruders entered his home in Santa Marta, Colombia. In El Salvador in a separate development, Periodista Digital reported on 3 April 2018 that a Roman Catholic priest was stopped by three masked men while driving his car. The priest fled but was caught and shot dead. The priest had received death threats from a local criminal gang previously. Rossana Ramirez, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, explains: "El Salvador and Colombia are places of high risk for church leaders due to the strong presence of organized crime. The reported deaths are proof of this. It was known that the priest in El Salvador had been threatened and that the authorities did not provide any form of security. Crime levels have risen so high in El Salvador that a constitutional reform is being considered to allow sentencing gang members to death. In Colombia, despite the peace agreement with FARC, there is no sign that the levels of violence are diminishing. Indeed, according to an interview with the Colombian vice-president published by AM on 8 April 2018, there is increasing evidence of links between Mexican drug-trafficking organizations and Colombian gangs. Such links can exacerbate violence levels in some regions and affect Christians in particular, where they are known to oppose criminal operations."