'Defies all logic': The Colombians living by a 'toxic' landfill

[Judi Lynn]

A new report from the group Global Witness raises concerns over a landfill in rural Colombia and its health effects.



The town of Patio Bonito, Colombia, is situated next to a large landfill that some residents blame for health problems [Negrita Films/Global Witness]

By Inigo Alexander

Published On 30 May 2023
30 May 2023

Bogotá, Colombia – A few years ago, Graciela Rojas realised that her town stinks.

Her small rural community of Patio Bonito lies on the outskirts of the city of Barrancabermeja, in the lush San Silvestre wetlands, surrounded by a patchwork of swamps, lagoons and tropical forest. But despite its ecologically sensitive location, the town is a dump. Literally. Patio Bonito, home to approximately 200 people, is situated under the shadow of a large landfill, established in 2015.

Many Patio Bonito residents have denounced the landfill’s detrimental impact on the environment, as well as on the health and wellbeing of the community. They blame the dump site for the increased contamination of their water, food sources and local marine ecosystems.

And now, a new report published on Tuesday by the human rights group Global Witness suggests that corporate mismanagement contributed to the pollution.

“Can you imagine what it is to live in a clean, green area with fresh air and, from one day to the next, see it full of rubbish? The smell was no longer the same old smell of wild nature but a creeping smell of garbage, some shocking odours,” Rojas told Al Jazeera.

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/30/defies-all-logic-the-colombians-living-by-a-toxic-landfill

[Judi Lynn]

1. A Colombian town was contaminated during Uribe's Presidency by runoff from a mass grave.

I posted articles at D.U. which appeared once it was discovered. It's a horrifying nightmare:


ULY 17, 2015 12:42 PM
UPDATED 8 YEARS AGO

Colombia to unearth 'world's largest urban mass grave': official
By Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation

3 MIN READ


MEDELLIN, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For the past seven years, Luz Elena Galeano has been searching for her husband who was last seen being forced off a bus by armed men in the Colombian city of Medellin. Her quest to find her husband, and father of her two children, could soon be over.

Colombian authorities have announced work will begin on July 27 to unearth what they say is the world’s largest urban mass grave, located in a garbage tip in a sprawling mountainside slum known as Comuna 13 in western Medellin.

“For the size of the area, for the number of people who could be buried in this zone ... it has been said that this is the largest urban mass grave in the world,” Jorge Mejia, an adviser in Medellin mayor’s office, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Galeano blames her husband’s disappearance on right-wing paramilitary fighters, who she believes killed him and dumped his body in the landfill, along with scores of other victims of Colombia’s civil war over the past two decades.

“The truth is buried there. We haven’t had any help from the state until now. We’ve been fighting to get justice and find out the truth,” said Galeano, a spokeswoman for the relatives of the disappeared. “It’s a drop of hope in a sea of impunity,” she said, bearing a photo of her missing husband around her neck.

Several former paramilitary warlords, who demobilized and are now in prison, have told state prosecutors during criminal trials that they buried bodies in Comuna 13’s mass grave.

More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-mass-graves/colombia-to-unearth-worlds-largest-urban-mass-grave-official-idUSKCN0PR1YT20150717