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Journalist in Florencia, Caquetá, receives death threats

(FLIP/IFEX) - After denouncing the threats to which she was being subjected, the journalist Olga Cecilia Vega fled Florencia, the capital of Caquetá department in southern Colombia, on 1 February 2006. In October 2005, she had published an interview in the U.S. newspaper "The New Herald", with a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) guerrilla group who goes by the name of "Raúl Reyes".

On 28 January, two unidentified men entered the administrative offices of the hotel in which Vega was then staying, and warned the manager: "Tell this guerrilla that she has 48 hours to get out of Florencia." Days before, the hotel had received various phone calls expressing similar sentiments, including a threat to bomb the hotel if the journalist did not depart the city.

As well as the phone calls, during this same period two unidentified men had attempted to visit Vega at her current place of work, the Caquetá Departmental Health Institute (Instituto Departamental de Salud de Caquetá). Security personnel from the office confirmed with the journalist that the men had waited for her and asked for her repeatedly.