Prayers for Peacemakers 16 May 2018 Colombia
Pray for human rights defender Lilia Peña and her family as they heal from the trauma of threats to their lives.
On 9 May 2018, witnesses state that four masked and armed men entered the home of human rights defender Lilia Peña, threatening the lives of her elderly father, her housekeeper and two of her grandchildren. For approximately twenty minutes the armed men held the group at gunpoint repeating several times to Peña—who pleaded with them to take whatever they wanted but not harm anyone—“We´ve come here to kill you b***h. Through the window she noticed another man who gave a signal to the men inside. The four men grabbed a laptop, a projector, three cellphones and left. As they left they shouted, “If you scream we will kill you.”
Peña, the co-founder of the Regional Association for Victims of State Crimes (Spanish acronym ASORVIMM) has received threats on numerous occasions. In 2013 CPT accompanied Lilia for several days after someone threatened to throw a grenade into her house.
Being a human rights activist like Lilia is an incredibly risky venture. According to the Colombian government’s Human Rights Protection Office(Defensoria del Pueblo) from January 2016 to the 27th of February 2018, 282 community leaders and human rights activists have been murdered.
