Sara was attacked with unimaginable cruelty. Whats just as painful is the silence of those who stood by.Those chilling words were uttered in April by the mayor of Bello in the Antioquia region of Colombia, where 32-year-old Sara Millerey Gonzlez was reportedly raped, tortured, and thrown into a roaring creek in the middle of the city as dozens watched and recorded her anguish. The trans womans legs and arms had been broken, and she had a punctured lung; she was unable to pull herself from the water. Related Rebel groups in Colombia are killing trans women in a social cleansing campaign The next day, she died of cardiac arrest as her mother watched in horror.Video of her attempted drowning, caught on camera by those bystanders who were warned not to intervene, shocked the nation. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today What happened in Bello is fascism, Colombias President Gustavo Petro postedto X. Fascism is the violent erasure of human difference be it political, religious, ethnic, or sexual.There are Nazis in Colombia, he said. Six weeks later, Millerey Gonzlezs friend Nawar Jimenez met the same fate in Bello, another among nearly 50 queer and trans people killed in Colombia this year, according to rights group Caribe Afirmativo.The deaths are part of an ongoing and organized social cleansing campaign by the remnants of the Farq, the rebel group disbanded in 2016 that gripped Colombia in terror for decades. As they vie for power now in different regions of the country, ridding them of undesirables has become a tool for exerting their influence and asserting control.In Caquet, a sparsely populated department in southern Colombia and a rebel stronghold, flyers began appearing on the streets and circulating through WhatsApp last year, warning of social cleansing of fa***ts, lesbians and men and women who destroy homes, all of whom would be considered legitimate military targets. On paper, the Colombian government is progressive when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights, with laws granting marriage equality and adoption, and the right to change gender identity on official documents.A special task force appointed by the president apprehended a suspect in Millerey Gonzlezs case weeks after she died, and lawmakers named a bill after her thats designed to push prosecutors to better investigate anti-LGBTQ crimes, CNN reports.Despite those gestures, the government remains largely powerless to stop the killings, a situation one UN expert described in May as Colombias persistent gap between constitutional aspirations and lived realities. Another friend of Millerey Gonzlezs in Bello, who asked to use a pseudonym in an interview with El Pas, illustrated the relentless and escalating nature of the social cleansing campaign, and the terror it instilled among the groups the government purports to protect.Ginna pointed to how Millerey Gonzlezs attackers acted in broad daylight, when victims are usually set traps that take them to remote places or bundled into cars. Two years ago, several gay men were lured to hotel rooms through the Grindr app and killed. Ginna recalled another friend of Millerey Gonzlez, stabbed to death one night in the street while she was sleeping. Their friends La Juana and La Tita were murdered in their homes, and La Javi was killed in a hair dressing salon. Eight years ago, Susana Fonnegra was murdered in a park at dawn.Sara was not only murdered, but they wanted to show everyone what they did, Ginna said. They wanted to make sure everyone saw the cruelty. Dozens attended Millerey Gonzlezs funeral mass on April 8. While some City Hall officials used Millerey Gonzlezs deadname in their communications about her, the priest who led the mass called her Sara.She felt like a woman, he said, like any other woman. What harm did she do? Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.