The prosecution said that investigators found a mass grave with the bodies of eight community and church leaders who were apparently executed by guerrillas.

The investigators found the mass grave in a rural part of Calamar, a town in the Guaviare province, according to a prosecution statement.

The victims disappeared in early April after they were summoned by the Armando Rios Front of guerrilla organization EMC, said the prosecution.

Regional prosecutors, under the protection of the military, began a search for the missing leaders immediately after their disappearance.

The investigation has established that on April 4, 2025, two of the victims were summoned by members of the aforementioned armed group and, three days later, the remaining six people were also summoned, in order to be ???interrogated??? about the possible presence or creation of another criminal group.

Prosecutor General’s Office

The investigation allegedly found that the guerrillas of the local guerrilla unit was ordered to execute the leaders by “the circle of confidants of alias “Ivan Mordisco,” the commander of the EMC in southeast Colombia.

The EMC commanders allegedly suspected the leaders of having information about the possible creation of a unit of rival guerrilla group ELN in the region.

Tensions in the region have been high for a year after a significant number of EMC abandoned Mordisco and, under the leadership of “Calarca” formed a dissident group called the EMBF.

In a statement that was published days after the leaders’ disappearance, the EMC issued a statement in which it blamed Calarca’s “criminal group” of the “quite strange events that have been happening and are affecting the tranquility of the area” around Calamar.

Both Mordisco and Calarca are among the main dissenters of a peace process with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC, which they left in 2016 ahead of a peace deal with the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos.