2 e) the Kankuamo indigenous people regard their territory as the foundation upon which they construct their political organization, grow their development and build their ethnic and cultural identity. For the Kankuamo, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is sacred land; f) according to information supplied by the petitioners, the Kankuamo indigenous people’s geographic location exposes its members to constant acts of violence and threats on the part of outlaw armed groups operating in the area. Governors and the leaders of indigenous village governments have been the victims of threats, assaults and assassinations. A number of families have had to move to protect their lives; food supplies are being cut off and indigenous youth run the risk of being impressed into the service of these armed groups; g) some 166 Kankuamo were killed by armed groups between 1993 and 2003, but by August 2003 the number killed in that year alone was at 44; h) Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office issued Resolution No. 24 on September 18, 2002, where it set forth its views on the systematic human rights violations that armed elements were committing against indigenous peoples in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the oppressive control that these elements exercised over the indigenous peoples’ territories and the forced displacements that indigenous peoples in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta were forced into by these armed groups, all of which was detrimental to the indigenous peoples’ development and social fabric. The Ombudsman’s Office also made reference to the extrajudicial executions and cruel treatment to which members of these peoples had fallen victim. i) on September 24, 2003, the Commission asked Colombia to adopt precautionary measures on behalf of the Kankuamo indigenous people; to adopt the measures necessary to provide emergency care to the victims of forced displacement; to arrange for collective measures of protection, including the presence of a community defender, worked out in consultation with the beneficiaries of the measures by way of their representative bodies; and to investigate the violence and threats made against the beneficiary indigenous people; j) in submissions dated October 27 and November 6, 2003, the petitioners informed the Commission that despite the precautionary measures it had ordered, new crimes had been committed against the members of the Kankuamo indigenous people. The petitioners reported the murder of María Isabel Minllola, alleged to have happened on October 15, 2003, and to have been the work of members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. The petitioners also reported the extrajudicial execution of the following members of the indigenous people: Dixon Alfredo Arias Arias (October 16, 2003); Cristóbal Montero, Pedro Arias and Néstor Montero (October 17, 2003); Carlos Arias Martínez (October 20, 2003); Freider Caballero Martínez (October 24, 2003), by unidentified perpetrators, and Hob Martínez Borbón (October 29, 2003). According to information supplied by the petitioners, these executions were alleged to have been the work of