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The inhabitants do not cross from one neighborhood to another, they do not walk on the street at night, public transport ceases activities every time, everyone tries to avoid being killed. The zozobra is the day-to-day in Comuna 13 San Javier which is located in the hills west of Medellin. Although violence is nothing new, the area was the first with urban guerrilla settlements, ahead - and to this day - of paramilitaries, and he knew among poverty the easy money of cocaine with the narco Pablo Escobar.
The 16 communes that sit among the mountains on the periphery of the city were formed as favelas of peasants displaced from their lands by illegal armed groups. They settled amid extreme poverty, hopelessness, near-zero employment opportunities and, of course, no basic services. Even today - albeit already with significant social investments - most of its neighbourhoods are low-tiered. Thus explained its origin the journalist and former mayor of Medellin, Alfonso Salazar, in the book 'We were not born pa' seed'.
Commune 13, a neighborhood of about 160 thousand inhabitants, quickly became the epicentre of violence in this area. The houses over hills, the narrow and steep streets, its multiple alleys and viewpoints make it a strategic point for crime gangs, because it is easy to control. In the midst of armed conflict, the guerrilla militias of the ELN and M-19 groups initially arrived - for the first time in urban areas - and later the FARC.
By the 1980s, Capo Pablo Escobar, under the command of the Medellin Cartel, found between poverty and lack of opportunities for the communes the cradle of their new lieutenants, cultivating the culture of easy cocaine money. For young people from displaced families entering these criminal structures, it was the only promise of social acenso. A sicariate network was then formed in the service of the drug trafficker, dedicated to kidnapping, extortion, account adjustments and homicides.
Even Hélmer 'Pacho' Herrera, third at...