[Translated by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

"Relief agencies control environmental emergency due to chemical spill in Los Pozos - Caquetá" - March 6, 2023

...In the Risk Management Council held this Monday morning in the Caquetá Governor's Office, the department's relief agencies presented all the activities that have been deployed since last Saturday to contain the emergency that generated an environmental risk to the surrounding areas of the 92 hectares that make up the area of the Emerald Energy company... In the same way, the Departmental Health Secretariat requested [the local Environmental authority] Corpoamazonía and the National Authority of Environmental Licenses -ANLA- to intervene and make a review of the water sources that surround the area, to make an inventory of which ones were affected and what are the solutions to avoid that this liquid expands even more in the surrounding areas, harming the people and animals that inhabit the neighbouring farms... In this sense, a Security Council was held this afternoon where the Specific Command of Caguán was asked to implement the necessary security to prevent criminals from continuing to loot the installations and to prevent this type of damage from continuing. "We must prevent these vandals from continuing to steal the valves, the iron and many elements that were left after the total burning of this company", said the Secretary of Government Sandra Milena Rodríguez Pretelt...