A story of violence, forced displacement, and mistaken identity lies behind the killing of eight Christian leaders in Colombia, whose bodies were discovered last week in a mass grave.
The victims—a pastor from the Iglesia Cristiana Carismática Cuadrangular (ICCC, the Colombian branch of The Foursquare Church) and seven others affiliated with the ICCC and the Iglesia Evangélica Alianza de Colombia—went missing in April.
They had traveled to the village of Puerto Nuevo after a summons from Frente Primero, a dissident group of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).
All eight Christians had previously fled from Arauca, a region close to the Venezuelan border where armed groups have increasingly targeted pastors and converts to Protestantism.
According to the prosecutor’s office in Calamar, where the bodies were found, Frente Primero had mistaken the Christians for members of another armed organization, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN, National Liberation Army), which has one of its bases in the Arauca region.
“This situation apparently stems from the origins of some of them; they are of Araucanian origin, and in this criminal paranoia, the perpetrators assume they are members of the ELN,” prosecutor Raúl González told the newspaper El Colombiano.
The massacre shocked Christians in Calamar. Images from the burial site showed rudimentary wooden crosses, suggesting that local residents may have tried to honor the victims as best they could before officials reached the gravesite.
The victims have been identified as Nixon Peñalosa, Maryuri Hernández, Isaíd Gómez, Maribel Silva, James Caicedo, Oscar García, Jesús Valero, and Carlos Valero. According to a local pastor, they were “brothers of good testimony, people who always showed their commitment to the community.”
After the discovery of the bodies, more violence hit the town of Calamar. On Friday, a drone carrying a grenade hit an army base near the city center.
As a result, the city suspended administrative services for the day, citing risks to the safety of public employees. Churches in the area also moved Sunday evening services up to the early afternoon, between 2 and 3 p.m., to ensure that people would be home by nightfall.
“There is a tense atmosphere, but people have not stopped congregating. We perceive the massacre as an isolated incident, but we ask for much prayer,” said the pastor.
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The country’s decades-long armed conflict officially ended with the 2016 peace deal between FARC and the Colombian government, but many parts of the country remain contested territory between state forces and armed groups who rejected or abandoned the accords.
Calamar, a town of 11,000 inhabitants in Guaviare, a jungle region in southeastern Colombia, is in the heart of one of these land conflicts, between Frente Primero (also known as Armando Ríos and ruled by warlord Iván Mordisco) and the faction led by Calarcá Córdoba.
Last month, from June 7 to June 21, Mordisco ordered a curfew in the Guaviare from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The region’s economy, which relies on agriculture and livestock, faces challenges related to production and logistics. The difficulty in monitoring enables illegal activities, such as the planting of coca for the production of cocaine.
International observers and Colombian lawmakers alike have condemned the killings.
“Eight Christian leaders have been massacred in Calamar, Guaviare. This is an atrocious act that brings mourning to the country and an alarming sign that religious freedom is in danger in Colombia’s most forgotten regions,” said Senator Lorena Ríos, a vocal advocate for religious freedom.
Ríos has called for a full investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and the National Protection Unit, demanding justice for the victims and security guarantees for Christian communities in rural conflict zones.
Several Christian organizations in Colombia, including the Evangelical Confederation, have echoed her demands and called on the government to take decisive action to protect pastors and faith leaders in high-risk areas.
In a post on X, Colombian president Gustavo Petro described the events as “a serious affront to the right to life, religious freedom, and the spiritual and community work that so many people carry out in regions historically plagued by violence,” and he called on state entities to redouble their efforts to protect social and religious leaders.
Christian and Jewish groups harshly criticized Petro last April for choosing an anti-Zionist rabbi named Richard Gamboa as the new director of the Interior Ministry’s Office of Religious Affairs, which is responsible for coordinating interfaith dialogue and promoting religious freedom in the country.
Christian advocacy groups are particularly concerned by this latest incident. Open Doors, a global watchdog for religious persecution, ranks Colombia 46th on its 2025 World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution. The group cites persistent threats, surveillance, and even assassinations of church leaders who oppose the influence of armed groups in rural Colombia.
“Colombia fell 12 spots on the World Watch List, but this shouldn’t be taken as a sign that everything is well,” states Open Doors in its latest report. “Church leaders are particularly at risk because they are seen as competitive influences for the young people that make up much of the guerrilla groups’ ranks.”
Adding to this recent massacre was the murder of pastor Marlon Lora, his wife, and his daughter on December 29, 2024, in Aguachica, César department, in northern Colombia under mysterious circumstances. The investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s Office showed that the hit men apparently mistook one of the victims for the woman they had been paid to kill.
“Calamar is a place of good people, where they want to get ahead. And people who work hard,” said a local pastor.
“God has been raising people up in different ways here, restoring families, and the church has flourished beautifully,” he said. “But in the midst of all this, we must know that there is a spiritual struggle that is not against flesh and blood but against the works of the murderer. It is our duty to seek God and cry out to him.”
Hernán Restrepo is a Colombian journalist based in Bogotá. Since 2021 he has managed Christianity Today’s Spanish-language social media accounts.
