The regions of Valle del Cauca and neighbouring Cauca saw among the highest levels of violence on a national level during the month of June. Several community activists and former FARC members in the peace process were killed. One of the victims, Yidwar Mondragón, had twice met with Justice for Colombia delegations in Valle del Cauca, first in April 2023 and then in July 2024. Ongoing insecurity emphasises the urgent need to strengthen peace dialogues with armed groups, including with international support. More than 75 social activists have now been killed since the start of the year.
Here is JFC’s monthly update for June 2025 on the human rights situation in Colombia.
N.B. This article does not provide a definitive list of all human rights violations committed in Colombia. Various others are likely to have been committed during the period.
1 June – Youth worker and activist Mauricio Alegría Lucumí was murdered in the city of Cali, Valle del Cauca, where he coordinated training and mentoring for young people in the Comuna 18 neighbourhood. As well as sporting activities, he was known for focusing on role model guidance and developing skills in leadership and dispute resolution. His body was found with stab wounds in the city’s River Meléndez. Mauricio is the 71st social activist murdered in 2025.
2 June – Three people were killed inside a cabin near a recreational zone in Puerto Colombia, department of Atlántico. Four armed men entered the cabin at around 9.30pm and attacked the people inside, with two dying at the scene and a woman also dying on the way to hospital. Seven more people were injured. Multiple armed groups are active in and around Puerto Colombia. It was the 27th massacre (attacks in which at least three people are killed) of 2025 so far.
2 June – Community leader Daniel Trujillo was killed in Argelia, department of Cauca, one of the most violent regions of Colombia. He organised community sporting and social activities and was a commentator on local sports events.
3 June – Awá indigenous human rights activist Luis Aurelio Araújo was murdered in Ricaurte, department of Nariño, along with his bodyguards Jesús Albeiro Chávez and Jackson Solarte, who were both employed at the state-run National Protection Unit (UNP). On 10 March this year, Luis Aurelio had been accredited by the government as General Coordinator of the CAMAWARI indigenous organisation, which represents traditional Awá communities. The men were attacked by armed assailants who proceeded to incinerate their UNP vehicle.
7 June – Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot twice while delivering a speech at a campaign rally in Bogota’s Fontibón neighbourhood. Uribe Turbay belongs to the hard-right Democratic Centre party which governed under Iván Duque during the 2018-22 period. Political parties from across the spectrum united in condemnation of the attack, which left Uribe Turbay in a critical condition in hospital. Read more about the incident here.
10 June – Human rights organisations documented a wide array of violent incidents in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, where armed groups continue to forcefully exert their strength. While several incidents appeared to target police, multiple civilians were injured by explosive devices. A large number of residents were forcibly confined to their homes by the violence.
10 June – Amid the wave of violence in Valle del Cauca, three people were killed and four more injured when an explosive device detonated in the town of Jamundí. The zone forms part of a strategic corridor towards the coast favoured for trafficking contraband materials.
12 June – The Valle del Cauca violence continued as two men and a woman were killed in the municipality of Pradera. Their bodies were found inside a car with a sign alleging they were involved with an armed group. It is the 31st massacre of the year so far.
12 June – Social and cultural leader Dayiston Correa Meneses was murdered in Segovia, Antioquia, where he was well-known for his work in promoting traditional cultural practices such as the Carnival La Gigantona, for which he led the committee following the murder of its previous coordinator, Jaime Gallego. It was the 75th killing of a social activist in 2025.
16 June – Former FARC guerrilla Arley de Jesús Holguín Urrego was murdered in Pueblo Risa, department of Risaralda. Pueblo Risa was recently the subject of an alert by authorities over the presence of an armed group.
16 June – Political and community activist Juan Camilo Espinoza Vanegas was murdered in San Andrés de Cuerquia, Antioquia, where he was a councillor for the Indigenous Authorities of Colombia (AICO) political party. A 17-year-old was detained as a suspect. Local communities face high levels of risk in the zone due to orders issued by armed groups.
20 June – An attack in the port city of Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca, claimed four lives in the year’s 32nd massacre. The victims were travelling by river launch when attacked.
21 June – Former FARC guerrilla José Arnulfo Rodríguez Castañeda was killed in Argelia, Cauca, where he was reintegrating to civilian life under the terms of the 2016 peace agreement. Armed assailants attacked a public establishment, killing 38-year-old José Arnulfo and one other person, with four others injured.
22 June – In Toledo, Antioquia, armed assailants belonging to the Clan del Golfo paramilitary successor group abducted Hernando Acevedo and Eucario Callejas, both of whom belonged to the JAC community council in the Helechales district. They were subsequently killed. The two men were renowned locally for their defence of human rights, particularly of rural communities. Their murders took the number of socal activists murdered in 2025 to 78.
26 June – Colombia’s National Ombudsman issued an urgent alert over growing violence and human rights violations in the Cauca municipalities of El Tambo and Patía. Rival armed groups were seeking to consolidate control in the zone, resulting in grave risks of combat impacting local communities, including peasant farmers, indigenous and African-Colombian populations, with children at high risk. The zone is strategically important for trafficking and other illicit activities.
27 June – Armed assailants murdered former FARC member and political prisoner Yidwar Mondragón in Candelaria, Valle del Cauca. As a prisoner and leader of the Jonathan Sabogal Collective, set up to represent young people unjustly imprisoned under the Duque government over their role in the 2021 National Strike protests, Yidwar had twice met with Justice for Colombia delegations. The first time, in April 2023, a JFC delegation visited Yidwar and 19 other young men at Palmira Prison in Valle del Cauca, where he openly discussed the many difficulties facing the prisoners as they struggled to access legal support and decent prison conditions, with many of them jailed on highly dubious evidence and still awaiting trial. The second meeting with a JFC delegation, in July 2024, came after Yidwar’s release at a human rights meeting in Cali which involved survivors of police violence, human rights defenders and relatives of young people killed by police. Those who met him included British and Irish politicians and trade unionists from UNISON, the GMB, POA, NEU, Forsa and UCU.
27 June – The day’s second killing in Valle del Cauca of a former FARC member saw armed assailants on motorbikes target Marco Emilio Jaramillo Penagos in the town of Florida. He was belonged to the JAC community council for the Pueblo Nuevo district and was based at the formal transition zone Monterredondo, one of 24 such spaces created in the 2016 peace agreement.
27 June – Community activist Angie Leandra Henao Zambrano was murdered in Corinto, Cauca, where she belonged to the ANUC peasant farmers’ social organisation. She was shot repeatedly by armed assailants inside her home in front of her three children.