Indepaz has recorded 117 killings of social leaders in Colombia in 2026. Among the victims was community leader Gloria Buitrago, shot in El Plateado, in the municipality of Argelia in Cauca. Armed men travelling in two vehicles stopped and shot her, El Diario reported. No group claimed responsibility, and authorities hadn’t identified who carried out the killing. People organizing local projects and representing villages are being killed. Their attackers remain unknown.
Community Power Under Fire
Buitrago served as the fiscal, or oversight officer, of a Junta de Acción Comunal, an elected neighbourhood board that runs local projects and represents villages to the state. She also led the local committee of bar owners. The report names her work but doesn’t give a motive for her killing.
The Defensoría del Pueblo, Colombia’s ombudsman for human rights, counted 112 social leaders killed from 1 January to 31 August 2026. That total included 91 men and 21 women, El Diario reported on 27 September. August was the deadliest month in that count, with 22 cases. Since January 2016, the year Colombia signed its peace deal with the FARC guerrilla, the ombudsman had recorded 1,777 such killings. It also counted 10 former FARC fighters who signed the deal and were killed by August.
Cauca had the largest number of cases in both counts. El Diario put the department’s 2026 total at 26, including six in September. Indepaz recorded indigenous leaders James Flor and María Ovidia Palechor, killed in Cajibío on 1 September, and Jacob Guacheta Zambrano, killed in Morales on 10 September. It also recorded Manuel España, a community board member killed in Argelia on 29 August.
Territorial Control, Community Pressure
The region lies on routes used for cocaine, weapons and illegal gold. Armed groups fight over those routes and pressure community groups. Leonardo González, director of Indepaz, identified three armed forces operating around El Plateado: the Carlos Patiño structure, a faction of former FARC guerrillas who rejected the 2016 peace deal; the Diomer Cortés front of the Segunda Marquetalia, another group of former FARC fighters; and the ELN, described as Colombia’s largest remaining left-wing guerrilla.
Those groups, González told El Diario, “maintain disputes for territorial control and exert pressure on community organisations”. The account names the armed factions and describes their pressure on local organizations. It doesn’t identify who killed Buitrago.
Warnings and the Counts
Indepaz recorded 187 social leader killings in 2025, with more than 150 recorded by the end of September that year, compared with 173 in 2024. Its 2026 count was lower than the 2025 total; at the pace described in the report, a social leader was killed roughly every two to three days.
The ombudsman counted 86 massacres with 326 victims in the first eight months of 2026. Colombia defines a massacre as three or more people killed together. Most social leader killings occur in rural areas far from Bogotá, Medellín and the tourist coast. Many victims worked on land claims, environmental issues or community boards.
The ombudsman issues early warnings for specific risk areas, including parts of Cauca. Indepaz, a private research group in Bogotá, publishes a list with each victim’s name, date and place, and updates it as cases are confirmed. El Diario reported the 117 figure on 30 September. The records document the toll and the warnings. The killings keep taking community organizers out of the places where they work.