At the beginning of the 20th century, the political scene of Colombia was divided between the Conservative Party, which represented the dominant sectors, and the Liberal Party, formed by traders, working-class people and peasants. In 1946, the victory of the Conservative Party after 16 years of Liberal rule caused an increasingly violent situation, which intensified on April 9, 1948, when the leader of the Liberal Party and presidential candidate, Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, was murdered. The event gave rise to demonstrations and riots that were brutally repressed in what is known as “el Bogotazo”, a day on which hundreds of people died. That was the beginning of the historical period known as “the Violence”, which would last until 1958, when a political agreement between Liberals and Conservatives was signed. It is estimated that around 170,000 people died during that period.

By 1960, however, violence increased again, with the emergence of different armed organizations that joined the political conflict, and intensified years later with the action of paramilitary organizations and the connection of guerrilla groups and paramilitary groups to drug trafficking. During the conflict, enforced disappearances, indiscriminate massacres, sexual violence, forced displacement have been perpetrated in Colombia as a result of the illegal appropriation of territories and murders of political and social leaders, among other crimes. Violence decreased due to the demobilization of different armed actors and specifically due to the General Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP by its Spanish acronym) in 2016, although, acts of violence and murders of human rights activists kept happening.

According to a report from the National Center for Historical Memory (NCHM), the Colombian armed conflict left 262,197 casualties between 1958 and 2018 and dozens of thousands of victims of enforced disappearance.

The territory of Montes de María has been one of the most affected by the armed conflict. Between 1985 and 2017, 3,197 selective murders and 117 massacres were registered there, as per data provided by the NCHM. The main cause of violence is directly related to the interests on the territory due to its great environmental wealth and its geographical position. This has led to a historical confrontation for its control, possession and use. The misappropriated territories have been turned into cattle ranches, drug corridors and monoculture fields.

Between February 16^th and 21^st, 2000, one of the most brutal massacres against the civil population of Montes de María took place, when more than 450 paramilitaries arrived to the district of El Salado, in El Carmen de Bolívar, and executed dozens of people in the presence of their family members and neighbors.