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Survivors of Osaka make up a memory movement

The massacre at the Osaka farm in Carepa, Antioquia, which occurred 23 years ago, claimed the lives of 11 banana workers. The 25 people who managed to escape from the barbarism lead today an organization to reconstruct the memory of this event, with which they hope to honor their dead and make the call to the country so that they will not be forgotten.

With different symbolic and liturgical acts, in the place where the massacre of Osaka happened, this February 14, starting at 6:00 a.m., will commemorate the 23 years of the tragic event that left 11 people dead. Government entities and banana workers will participate, mostly from union organizations such as Sintrainagro.

That morning of the massacre, 45 banana workers moved, as usual, on the buses to their place of work, the Osaka farm located in Carepa, when members of the Fifth Front of the then FARC guerrillas forced them to get out of the vehicle and they began to investigate them. Anticipating what would happen, some people tried to flee but were hit by bullets and the bodies of 11 workers were lying on the site.

José Humberto Moreno, one of survivors, attributes being alive to a miracle, since his wife, Miriam Padilla León, the only female victim, did not have the same fate. “We were on the bus when they took us down, they told us to make a line and they began to ask us, one by one, what work we did on the farm; Some were passed behind the line, and at one point a companion began to run and they began to shoot. Everyone dispersed but my wife and I did not have the courage to run and we stretched out on the floor”, says Moreno.

Humberto was waiting for death. “While we were on the floor, unable to look anywhere, these strangers again began shooting at those who were there, and when they were all gone I tried to move my wife, she did not answer, it was when I realized she was dead; I took strength from where I did not have because my legs did not respond to me, I dragged myself towards the channels of the road, and from that moment everything collapsed. “

With these same forces today, Humberto decided to promote the initiative Reborn Memories, in which about 25 people participate, supported by the Historical Memory Center and the municipality of Carepa. In this exercise in which they have narrated what happened and that has allowed them, according to Humberto, to resolve the pain and become visible before the entities: “we were forgotten, but now we are doing a recognition so that we know what happened here, we hope that the entities accompany us”, he says.

From these memories emerged a documentary with the same name, in addition to primers, among other narrations captured by the community. “Although I lost my sentimental partner, it is a miracle to be alive, and although the comrades that we lost we will not be able to recover them, we hope that the government will take us into account with the reparation; There have already been approaches, but repair is necessary to improve our quality of life”, Humberto said.

Elizabeth Granada Rios, director of the Victims Unit Urabá Darién, expressed support for the survivors of this massacre: “We will be as a unit accompanying them in this commemoration, as a measure of satisfaction, as victims of armed conflict, guiding them, as has already been done , on the repair route; although it is true that this massacre has not yet been declared before the Public Ministry to be included as a collective, it is a fact that marked the lives of these people and the region”.

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