20 children they were before and now they are quieter and sadder; and she, although she tries not to worry about her children, suffers insomnia and refuses to believe that her brothers are dead; sometimes she sees children on the street who look like them and she wonders whether they are alive, as she “refuse[s] to believe that they are dead.” The “grief that [she] feel[s] is unexplainable, like a piece of life that one is suddenly losing.” After what happened, the financial situation became more difficult and they did not have enough money to pay the rent. Some of her surviving brothers and her mother had to go live in a tin house, they went hungry and were cold, and she tried to help financially but sometimes she did not have enough even for herself and her children. Her mother always had food before the massacre; for this reason, it is very harsh and cruel not to have anything. They did not receive much financial support from the Red de Solidaridad, only twice that they helped pay the rent. Her mother has a heart and stomach condition and began to suffer a thrombosis; these illnesses are closely linked to what happened to her. Also, she did not receive medical care because she did not have the displaced persons identification card. The State is responsible for what happened because they abandoned the region; therefore, it must answer for that, provide financial support and reparation to her mother and to her for “the moral and financial instability that it caused them to suffer.” Justice for her would be for those who did that to have to pay, for the State to answer for the mistakes and to acknowledge them publicly. “Instead of justice [for] the paramilitary they are giving them cover and not helping the victims, this makes one angry and powerless.” It is important to know the truth and to know why they did that and how it benefited them. She requested that “if the paramilitary […] have [her brothers] as recruits, that they set them free, allow them to go home, and if they are dead then those responsible should pay for that.” e) Zuli Herrera Contreras, sister of Hugo Fernando Martínez Contreras and of Diego Armando Martínez Contreras and stepdaughter of Gustavo Caicedo Rodríguez The farm in Mapiripán was comfortable, spacious, well equipped, and there were animals. Her spouse and her stepfather worked and farmed the land and felled trees. There was always food. She always had a very good relationship with her stepfather and with her brothers. Before the massacre she went to Bogotá to have her third child and when she heard of the massacre she was unable to communicate with her family. Their relatives told her that her family was dead and that she could not go there because it was dangerous. She felt “very desperate knowing that.” When she talked to her mother and told her what happened “it was very painful.” When she met with the rest of her family she found her mother “distraught[, as] in one moment she lost everything [that she had], the smaller children cried for their father, for their brothers, and asked about them all the time.” Her mother was left in very poor shape and ill; she is always in a bad mood and sad. Her siblings “were hit very hard,” because although they were very small they remember everything and cannot forget.