Medical mission in El Bagre (Antioquia) is fleeing due to threats

A doctor's position at the ESE Hospital Nuestra Señora del Carmen, in the municipality of El Bagre (Antioquia), pays more than five million pesos a month. However, the municipality of 52 thousand inhabitants located in Bajo Cauca was left with three out of five vacancies this week.

Apparently, the generous employment contract is not enough to evaporate the fear of losing one's life caused by a threatening pamphlet with the message “leave town”, written in red letters and misspellings, which was abandoned at the places of residence of the five doctors.

Faced with this intimidation, three of the five doctors decided to leave town and now the ESE is looking for their replacements, although the task will not be easy if the situation of insecurity in the municipality persists.

The commander of the Antioquia Police Department, Colonel Daniel Mazo Cardona, says the manuscript is under investigation. However, the hypotheses used by the public forces are somewhat puzzling: “We are verifying and doing some work to find out if this threat really exists as such or if it is a self-threat,” he said.

In any case, the commander assured that the Colombian Police and Army will provide accompaniment to the two doctors who stayed and those who come to fill the abandoned places, so that the medical care of the inhabitants in the healthcare center is not affected.

These threats to the medical mission come in a week in which El Bagre sets the news agenda, not precisely because of its mines or crops, but because of the high levels of insecurity.

Just this Monday, April 4, Mrs. Rubí Andrea Tavares Areiza, 35, born in Tarazá, was gunned down in the La Floresta sector of the municipality. According to the colonel, the attacker took advantage of the fact that the area was dark to attack Tavares without being seen.

Likewise, on Friday afternoon, the trans woman Shelony Viloria, 22, was attacked in the El Progreso neighborhood of the same municipality. Viloria was injured and taken to an emergency department in Monteria, in the department of Córdoba. However, the severity of the injuries caused his death this Sunday, April 3. Shelony's death is also investigative material.

Caracol Radio spoke to Shelony's mother on Tuesday and confessed that her daughter had already had to leave town after receiving death threats because of her status as a trans person. He said he expected God to forgive the murderers “and that divine justice will be done for what they did to my son (sic). I'm just going to try to pray and pray and ask God a lot to forgive those people who did this to me.”

According to the mayor of El Bagre, Fáber Trespalacios, Shelony's attackers — now murderers — have already been identified and will be prosecuted. However, the identity of the attacker of Tavares, who had no outstanding accounts with anyone, is not yet known, nor is it known who is threatening the local doctors.

In addition to the danger faced by Shelony, the seventh trans woman to die in Colombia from violent actions in 2022 and the sixth LGBTI person attacked in the department of Antioquia, in El Bagre there is a problem of organized armed groups that make a presence and spread terror.

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