Rocio Campos Perez of Barrancabermeja in northern Colombia has spent the last ten years trying to find out what happened to her brother and the 24 others who were taken by paramilitaries on the night of 16 May 1998.
‘My life is centred around getting the truth about what happened and justice for my brother.
That Saturday evening, Daniel was in the pool hall on the block where we lived. He came out and gave me a beer someone had bought him. "Here, take this – I’m not drinking tonight," he said.
‘I will keep fighting until we can find the remains of my brother’
He told me he was going through the music tapes in the pool hall and went back inside. I said "see you later", drank the beer and went home. It was the last time I saw him.
What I thought when I heard the shots was that the army had started to pick people up. This was happening a lot at the time.
When they took my brother from the pool hall, one of my sisters tried to run to him. She saw him being hit with the butt of the gun on the back of the head. He fell to the floor on his knees and asked why they were hitting him.
When they left, my sister ran out to find my mum. She was crying and saying "they’ve taken Daniel". My mama said: "They’ll let him go straight away, he’s got no previous record, he’ll be back before we know it."
When we heard that people had been killed that was the beginning of the uncertainty. The whole family got together and we waited for any kind of news, for him to call us or for anyone with information. We waited up until dawn.
My mother is very strong. But to protect herself she won’t accept the reality of the situation and still hopes that her son will return home soon; she can’t believe we’ll find him dead.
I’ve even received death threats because of all this. My life has been split in two. But I will keep fighting until we can find the remains of my brother and can once again feel safe, without fear or pain.’