24th November, 2015
A guerrilla leader who was responsible for the murder of a Colombian pastor has been released from prison, and is now seeking to find the pastor’s grieving widow, Christian rights investigators say.
The killer returned to the remote community where the woman and her children were residing, telling neighbours that he wanted to find her, said Voice Of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC).
Armed men also stopped by the farm in search of the young mother, pregnant with twins when her husband went missing in 2007, Christians said. His dismembered body was later returned to the family in plastic bags.
The women and her children have since been moved to a safe location.
VOMC said that although the nation has been stablised in recent years thanks to a strong government, the country remains "volatile and dangerous".
"Leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries both seem to have abandoned their ideological agendas…to form gangs that are profiting from cocaine and kidnapping,” VOMC told BosNewsLife in a statement. Those who oppose this illegal activity are targeted.
Despite this, the church continues to grow at “an incredible rate” with the greatest "denominational growth" within indigenous Colombian churches, church observers say.
