GENEVA, Switzerland, March 27 (UPI) -- Thirteen human-rights groups in southern Colombia received death threats from a growing illegal armed group, the New Generation, U.N. officials said.
The human-rights groups' work "is indispensable for the preservation and development of a state of law," the Colombian office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement Tuesday expressing concern over the threats against the organizations in the Narino region.
"The office wishes to reiterate the importance of the work of human rights defenders in Colombia," it added, noting the latest threats follow an earlier series made in February, May and June last year.
The statement referred to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour's most recent report on Colombia earlier this month in which she stated Colombia has the responsibility to act preventively against risk factors that threaten the life, safety and work of human-rights defenders.
Colombia has been the scene of fighting between the government, right-wing paramilitaries, leftist rebels and criminal gangs for more than 40 years, during which scores of thousands of people have been killed and some 3 million others displaced, said UNHCR.
