The National Unit of Prosecutors’ Offices for Justice and Peace and CTI Criminology Team in Bucaramanga and Meta, with the support of Colombia’s Armed Forces – the Ramon Nonato Battalion of Infantry N° 44 conducted the exhumation of 22 bodies of the Urabeños gang members who were killed in combat in a rural area of Villanueva (Casanare), in 2004.
The human remains were recovered in Tauramena town (Casanare) cemetery, after a complaint filed by the family of one of the victims before National Unit against crimes of Disappearance and Forced Displacement.
According to the information obtained by the Attorney General’s Office, the people killed during a combat between the Urabeños and the Buitragueños gangs, on February 21, 2004, are those natives’ senior men from Caldas, Chocó, Valle, Tolima, Antioquia, Córdoba, Cauca, Cesar and Cundinamarca Departments.
Fifteen of the bodies were identified as: Osdany Gamarra Rondón, Yamel Enrique Rojas Londoño, Hubber Mina Carabalí, Jeimi Páez Torrado, Dan Miller Pastrana Rojas, José Antonio Contreras Amórtegui, Darinel Criado Jaimes, Julio Eliecer Bravo, Aníbal Gabriel Molina, Waldalíver Rodríguez, José González Carrillo, Luis Fernando Bolaños, Damián Murillo Rentería, Rigoberto Rivera Castrillón and Alexander de Jesús Bernal.
All the osseous remains will be moved to Bogota to continue with the identification process.