Ángel Ovidio Quintero González
Ángel Ovidio Quintero González was a well-known leader of the association of artisanal miners of San Francisco, Antioquia and the president of the Municipal Council of the same town. He worked with dedication amid multiple threats to improve the quality of life of mining families in San Francisco, one of the municipalities of Eastern Antioquia with the highest percentage of population living in poverty. The defender was attacked with a firearm in morning of March 19. While he managed to escape from it, his lifeless body was found in a river hours later.
HRDs in Colombia work in a violent and unsafe environment. They are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, physical assaults, torture, killings, illegal searches of their homes and offices and stigmatisation as a result of their activities in defence of human rights.
