A member of a crime victim advocacy group in Medellin, Colombia, has been murdered, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported.   

 

The killers had cut the throat of the victim, Diana Marcela Morales Arenas, a delegate from the Medellin Municipal Council for Victims’ Participation.

 

Her body was discovered in a rural area of Antioquia province in northwestern Colombia, council officials said.

 

The organization urged the Colombian attorney general’s office to vigorously investigate the crime to ensure that criminal elements did not get a sense of “impunity,” and called on authorities to take all measures necessary to defend Colombians who seek to combat crime and fight for human rights.

 

The Medellin Municipal Council has thus far provided few details about Morales’ work, and police have said little about the investigation, according to the Tribune.

 

Although violent crime remains a significant problem in Medellin, it has fallen substantially from levels reached during the heyday of cocaine baron Pablo Escobar.

 

In 1991, there were 6,300 homicides in Medellin. But over the past few decades, the homicide rate has fallen 80 percent in the wake of vigorous government efforts to stamp out drug trafficking, National Public Radio reported.
 

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