Farc dissidents led by alias Iván Mordisco escalated violence in Huila with an armed attack on the Tesalia police station and the murder of 21-year-old policewoman Karen Estefanía Pajoy Candela. The officer was executed while on vacation in front of her four-year-old son in rural La Plata. President Gustavo Petro condemned the act as a brutal war crime.
In recent days, Farc dissidents in Huila have shown strengthening by exploiting ceasefires under President Gustavo Petro's 'Total Peace' policy. On Friday night, members of alias Iván Mordisco's structure stormed the Tesalia municipality in the department's west, armed with long-range rifles, cylinder-bombs, and explosives. They targeted stationed police and civilians, but Tesalia Police Station officers contained the assault until reinforcements from the Goes and Army's Batallón Pigoanza arrived. At least one dissident was killed, and his body was buried in Río Negro, under Íquira jurisdiction, in an armed caravan with shots in the air, gunpowder, and music, displaying territorial control.
On Sunday, dissidents from the Hernando González Acosta front, led by alias Breiner or El Viejo and part of the Isaías Pardo block under Iván Mordisco, murdered policewoman Karen Estefanía Pajoy Candela in La Plata's Alto Cañada vereda. The 21-year-old, with two years, seven months, and seven days in the Police, worked in Intelligence at Pitalito and was on her eighth day of vacation. Unarmed, she was transporting her four-year-old son on a motorcycle to school when intercepted by two men on Yamaha motorcycles (a blue DR and a red XYZ), dressed in black with balaclavas and armed with pistols. They executed her without a word, abandoning her body on the road, found by peasants.
President Petro condemned the crime on X: 'Brutal war crime committed by the EMC... they kill a policewoman on vacation in front of her sister and son.' Brigadier General William Oswaldo Rincón Zambrano called it a 'criminal retaliation act' and expressed solidarity with the family. Colonel Carlos Eduardo Téllez Betancourt, Huila Police commander, noted she was defenseless. Politicians like Representative Luz Pastrana demanded urgent government action for violence in western Huila, while Senator Carlos Julio González Villa and Senator María Fernanda Cabal repudiated it, criticizing 'Total Peace.' Huila's Governor Rodrigo Villalba Mosquera condemned the attack and supported the family. Authorities are investigating to capture those responsible.
