E/CN.4/2005/88/Add.2 page 9 human rights and international humanitarian law aimed at indigenous peoples have been reported. These acts of violence are attributable primarily to the guerrillas and AUC (paramilitary groups which have been linked with the army and government authorities). The rate of violence in indigenous municipalities is 100 per cent higher than the national average, the hardest hit being the Kankuamo and Wiwa peoples of the Sierra Nevada, the Kofan people in Putumayo, the Chimila in Magdalena, and the Korebaju, Betoye and Nasa, and the Tule and Embera-Katio in the Urabá region. 26. Where there are several armed groups operating, communities in indigenous regions frequently find themselves literally in the crossfire. They may be viewed as military objectives by one side or another and are sometimes forced to work for one or other of the groups, which immediately exposes them to reprisals. The Special Rapporteur was told that the army has posted a mountain battalion in the Sierra Nevada, which the indigenous communities see as a threat to their safety. Where the ground is constantly shifting in this way, the violence against indigenous people mounts and the humiliations and abuses multiply. 27. What is particularly serious is the fact that the armed groups make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants. The civilian population is increasingly victimized and all the warring parties are responsible to a greater or lesser degree for the violations of international humanitarian law that have taken place during the armed conflict. Yet for reasons of security the people of San Pedro de la Sierra have expressed a wish for the army to maintain a permanent presence, for otherwise they would be obliged to move elsewhere. 28. Reports have been received of several massacres that have occurred in indigenous areas in recent years; these massacres have been attributed to the paramilitaries, the guerrillas and other armed groups. There have also been reports of the air force bombing rural and indigenous communities as part of the Government’s military campaign against the guerrillas. The cabildo of Magui, in Nariño, for example, reports that an aerial bomb attack on 12 February 2004 destroyed the local school. On occasion, according to information received during the Special Rapporteur’s visit, the military make no attempt to prevent massacres announced in advance by the paramilitaries, as happened in the case of Naya. Some of the armed groups use home-made explosive devices and anti-personnel landmines to terrorize the population, with lethal results. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 170 indigenous people were killed in this way in 2002. The number of municipalities affected by landmines now stands at 422, in 30 departments, according to the Anti-Personnel Landmines Monitoring Centre of the Presidential Programme for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. 29. Many indigenous communities report selective killings of their leaders and spokespersons, and of their traditional authorities. Such killings appear to form part of a strategy to decapitate and confuse the indigenous communities, and they certainly hasten their social and cultural disintegration. These are truly acts of genocide and ethnocide against indigenous peoples. Equally worrying are the murders of human rights defenders, possibly encouraged by unfounded statements by senior government officials equating human rights organizations with terrorists.