BOGOTA – The United Nations human rights office in Colombia warned Tuesday that five Indigenous groups in a storied mountain range face “physical and cultural” extinction, a critical threat that stems from armed groups fighting over their territory and insufficient state protection.

Scott Campbell, Colombia’s representative for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement that the risk of physical and cultural extinction of Indigenous People of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is “an ongoing tragedy that we can and must prevent.”

Campbell urged the Colombian government to protect the Kogui, Wiwa, Kankuamo, Arhuaco, and Ette Naka Indigenous groups, whose combined population is approximately 54,700 people.

Campbell’s statement followed a visit to the Sierra Nevada region, where U.N. officials spoke with representatives of these Indigenous tribes.

“These groups are under various forms of cruel attack from non-state armed groups,” Campbell said, highlighting the “devastating repercussions on their lives, their land, their territory, their self government…and their spirituality.”

In 2022, UNESCO added the ancestral knowledge of these Indigenous groups to its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. The recognition highlights the “fundamental role” their traditions play in preserving the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta — a mountain range that emerges directly from the Caribbean Sea and boasts snowy peaks reaching nearly 6,000 meters.

But for many years, the Indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada have been under attack from settlers, and now from rebel groups.

Campbell said that rebel groups in the area are imposing curfews on Indigenous communities and interfering with their local assemblies. He added that hundreds of Indigenous people from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta have been forcibly displaced, while last year an Arhuaco community leader was murdered and a member of the Kogui tribe disappeared.

Colombia’s government has struggled to pacify rural areas where rebel groups and drug trafficking gangs fight for territory abandoned by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the large guerilla group that made peace with the government in 2016.

President Gustavo Petro has launched peace talks with most of the nation’s remaining rebel groups, but the negotiations have yielded few results so far.

Campbell urged the government to protect Indigenous people in the Sierra Nevada not only through military force, but by providing better access to healthcare, education and employment opportunities.

“The violent situation has its roots in disputes over control of territory, drug trafficking routes and various forms of illicit economic activity by non-state armed groups.” Campell said.

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