Sara Cárdenas was once 18 years previous. She left house that evening to head get ice cream along with her mom, Sandra Pérez, in her community within the the city of Suba, in Bogotá. A couple of hours later, a police assault modified your lifestyles without end. It was once Might 5, 2021 and the Nationwide Strike protests have been in complete swing in Colombia. Tens of 1000’s of electorate have been demonstrating for weeks towards the tax reform of the then right-wing president, Ivan Duque. Between the resistance of the protesters and the brutal repression of the Police, spaces of a lot of towns had turn out to be battlefields stuffed with smoke, clashes, vandalism, and tear fuel. In Suba there have been a number of issues hit through violence. However Sara and her mom had not anything to do with it. They only went for ice cream.
Round 11, as Sandra advised the courtroom on Might 20, the 2 girls arrived on the Plaza Imperial Buying groceries Heart, a couple of mins from her area. It was once closed. The encompassing streets, stuffed with protesters. Mom and daughter stopped to look at the scene. “We watched the protests peacefully, we have been spectators,” Sandra recalls. The entirety was unhealthy in a question of seconds. Sandra says that the individuals’ chants have been interrupted through units thrown through the Police. The streets have been full of tear fuel. There was once smoke and chaos in all places. Sara and Sandra have been scared. They made up our minds to run.
They adopted a trail to every other buying groceries middle, Alpaso Plaza. One way or the other they ended up trapped in an alley. They have been surrounded through two dental clinics and through clashes between the protesters and the Cell Anti-Rebellion Squad (ESMAD), the criticized police pressure that led the repression of the protests. There was once no method out. There was once no selection however to attend. “I used to be paralyzed pondering that the Police have been going to persecute the individuals who have been protesting,” says Sandra. However she says it wasn’t like that. “(3 brokers) have been left status in entrance of me,” she continues. The uniformed males, below the command of Mayor Luis Fernando Guavita Moreno, started to insult the 2 girls. “Rattling complain, cross to her area and take her canine,” they yelled at her, Sandra advised Amnesty World.
At that second the occasions started that experience Guavita in a prison trial for 3 crimes, together with tried homicide. One of the crucial law enforcement officials pulled out a “lengthy black gun with a large nozzle,” in step with the Prosecutor’s Place of job accusation towards the mayor. He advised them to go away. Sooner than they’d time to escape, he shot them. Sandra believes the gun was once loaded with rubber bullets. Exactly, all over the 2019 and 2021 protests, ESMAD law enforcement officials used “much less deadly ammunition”, however no longer inane ones. One among them, of a unique kind, was once the one who killed Dylan Cruz in November 2019 and set the rustic on fireplace. That evening Sandra had 11 affects on virtually her complete frame: the attention, the neck, the breast, the rib, the tummy, the vagina, the pelvis. Sara was once harm even worse. She won a bullet wound to her left eye. She by no means noticed thru that eye once more.
Because of those occasions, the Prosecutor’s Place of job charged Guavita on August 25, 2023. Along with tried homicide, it accuses him of abuse of authority because of an arbitrary act and private harm with incapability to paintings. In step with the accusing frame, the conduct of the law enforcement officials led through the mayor brought about Sandra to obtain a 15-day incapacity.
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A physician decided that the shot brought about Sara a “everlasting bodily deformity that is affecting the face and everlasting purposeful disturbance of the organ of imaginative and prescient.” The physician was once correct: her aunt Ingrid Pérez tells El PAÍS {that a} surgeon got rid of Sara’s left eye in October 2023. She changed it with a prosthetic. Like her, no less than 103 other folks misplaced considered one of their eyes between April and June 2021 all over the demonstrations towards the Duque Govt, in step with the NGO Temblores.
The threats
Mom and daughter allege that the police abuse didn’t finish that evening, with them lined in blood, mendacity on the street of Bogotá. It was once just the start. Seeing that they have been critically injured, a number of passersby helped them. They put them in a taxi that took them to a close-by clinical middle. The police didn’t allow them to cross in peace. Sandra claims that two ESMAD brokers, brandishing their guns, chased them to the hospital, the place they in the end disappeared. They would seem over and over within the following weeks.
The following day, Sara underwent eye surgical operation on the Simón Bolívar Health facility. Whilst she recovered, her mom took rate of taking her from clinical appointment to clinical appointment and submitting all conceivable proceedings. “I reported to the Prosecutor’s Place of job, the Lawyer Normal’s Place of job, the Comptroller’s Place of job, the Ombudsman’s Place of job, the UN, the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights (IACHR)“, he confident on Might 20 ahead of a pass judgement on of the Army Prison Justice. He additionally spoke with one of the crucial maximum vital information retailers in Colombia. Given the brutality of the tale, the case went viral. In step with Sandra, a number of law enforcement officials didn’t like that.
He says he started receiving threats virtually day-to-day. “After I took my daughter to check-ups, to every other surgical operation or to Forensic Medication, the Police have been all the time provide taking footage folks. “He was once round our area 24 hours an afternoon,” she recalled within the courtroom lawsuits. She additionally claimed that they continuously referred to as her from personal numbers: “If she saved speaking they might kill me and go away my mouth stuffed with flies. They mentioned that they already knew that she had a minor daughter they usually knew the place my area was once, that they might rape my minor daughter. That the opposite daughter would have her different eye got rid of. That she would stay quiet for me. That she already is aware of how toads die.”
Scared, she requested the Prosecutor’s Place of job for cover. A couple of days later, a police officer seemed on the door of her area and requested her to signal a record, probably as a result of he was once in command of offering safety. Alternatively, Sandra says that she reviewed it and located that the record was once no longer a coverage measure towards the police, however somewhat it gave coverage for home violence. The lady scratched the sheet and expelled the uniformed guy from her area. The threats endured.
Nearly two months had handed and Sandra was once nonetheless receiving intimidating messages on social networks: “They insulted us. They referred to as us terrorists, vandals,” she declared ahead of the pass judgement on. One evening, whilst she was once staring at tv along with her two daughters, she says a laser was once pointed at them from the road. They panicked and took quilt at the flooring. Sandra referred to as the doorman of her development, who advised her that there was once no person outdoor her development. A couple of days later, somebody broke the home windows in her condominium. It was once the straw that broke the camel’s again. Sandra and her daughters could not take it anymore. They made up our minds to go away Colombia.
The get away
On July 18, 2021, two and a part months after the assault, Sandra, Sara and their more youthful sister were given right into a taxi heading to their new lifestyles. They allege {that a} blue automobile and a motorbike chased them all over the commute to the airport. At the method, they stopped on the area of Ingrid, the women’ aunt. Sandra left a pc there with the entire knowledge at the a couple of proceedings she had made. Hours later, they have been on a aircraft to Europe, the place, after soliciting for refugee standing, they continue to be as of late. Ingrid now was the threatened one.
In a telematic interview with this newspaper, she says that she started investigating the case in October of that yr. She devoted herself to amassing movies, testimonies and paperwork. Two months later, in December, she offered her findings at an match arranged through World Amnesty on the College of the Andes, in Bogotá. She claims that after she was once leaving, a person stopped her and threatened to kill her: “Silent, she appears prettier. Or does she need to die? Her lifestyles was once by no means the similar once more.
He says he locked himself in his area for months. That she won calls similar to the ones made to her sister. That law enforcement officials got here to her area six instances with the pretext of constructing her signal paperwork associated with the case. That she suffered panic assaults. That she could not stand what he was once experiencing. That she was once stuffed with worry when, on July 12, 2022, she did the similar factor her sister had completed a yr ahead of: she fled Colombia along with her 11-year-old son and requested for assist in Europe. Now there have been 5 who had left Colombia because of threats from the Police. They’re all nonetheless there as of late. And they would like justice to be completed.
The circumstances
At this second there are two circumstances open in Justice for what came about to Sara and Sandra. One is in odd Justice, already relatively complex. The 52nd Prison Court docket of the Bogotá Circuit has authorized the accusation of fees made through the Prosecutor’s Place of job towards Mayor Guavita. The preparatory listening to for the trial was once scheduled for April 29, however was once postponed to August 22.
The opposite is within the Army Prison Justice, and even if it’s a lot additional in the back of, the circle of relatives is anxious in regards to the chance that it is going to finally end up taking priority between the 2. Prison paperwork disclose that that jurisdiction started the case best on October 6, 2023, when the odd Justice had already accused Guavita. In step with Ingrid and the attorney from the criminal workplace of the Universidad de los Andes who represents Sara and Sandra, Diana Mateus, the Army Prison Justice is shifting ahead with out the sufferers asking it to take action. Ladies worry that the function is to think jurisdiction and “brush aside the case.” Certainly, in step with The viewerOn March 8, Court docket 186 of Army and Police Prison Investigation requested the odd Justice pass judgement on to switch it to the Army Prison Court docket. There may be nonetheless a initial investigation, the primary segment of the process. Sandra gave her first statements there on Might 20.
By means of video name, Ingrid states that they have got been very tough years, particularly for Sara. Greater than 3 years after the assault, she continues to visit treatment: “she is making an attempt to know what it’s love to reside with out a watch and with a prosthesis.” Alternatively, she has endured regardless of the whole thing: she lives by myself, has realized a brand new language and is learning pre-med at college.
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