UPDATED ON:
Sunday, May 06, 2007
07:11 Mecca time, 04:11 GMT
 
News Americas
Mass grave discovered in Colombia
Interor ministry officials say they expect to discover more bodies in the coming days [AFP]

The remains of more than 105 people killed by right-wing paramilitaries have been discovered in the jungles of southern Colombia, government officials have said.
 
It was the largest ever discovery of bodies of people killed in Colombia's four-decade civil war, the country's interior ministry said on Saturday.
"We are horrified at this cruelty driven by the insatiable lust for land", Carlos Holguin, the interior minister, said in announcing the discovery of the graves.
More remains are expected to be found near 65 of the graves which were uncovered in Putumayo province on the Ecuadorean border late on Friday.
 
A total of 211 bodies have been recovered from the province since last year, but Friday's find by agents from Colombia's attorney-general's office marked the most number of bodies found in a single area.

Paramilitaries disarmed

More than 31,000 paramilitaries have disarmed since 2003 under a deal promising reduced jail terms to those who co-operate with investigations into crimes they committed in the name of fighting Marxist rebels.

Both the "paras" and the rebels are funded by Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade and are branded terrorists by Washington.

The paramilitaries were organised in the 1980s by rich Colombians to fight the rebels.

By the late 1990s the conflict had turned into little more than a turf war over drug-smuggling routes.

 
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