"2017 was deadliest year on record for Colombian human rights defenders", 01 May 2018

Killings of human rights defenders in Colombia, many of them by hit men or “sicarios”, have soared since the accord was signed, according to evidence submitted by rights groups to the International Criminal Court...Last year, the first full year of peace in Colombia after half a century of conflict, was the deadliest on record for human rights defenders... Human rights groups...say the Colombian government is failing to investigate the crimes properly. They are urging the ICC to open a formal investigation. [They say] the systematic nature of the killings, the scale, and the failure of the Colombian government to investigate them has reached the threshold of crimes against humanity... The peace deal, between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), ended half a century of a civil war that killed 200,000 people. Yet, amid a general decrease in violence, more than 120 land and environmental activists, community leaders and others have been killed in just one year, the vast majority of them in crimes that are not being adequately investigated by the justice system, rights groups said...Last month, Colombia’s inspector general condemned the state’s protection of social activists as a total failure and called on it to take action against the illegal armed groups responsible for assassinations...