COLOMBIA'S MURDERING CORNERSTONE

"There's always been this anxiety, this fear of dying in the streets, in the towns, in the country," Chindicue, who looks after his two children aged six and none, told AFP.

ONE day after Luis Dagua last left his farm in Colombia's southwest his body found, his head shattered with a rock.

He was 64-year old farmer and rights activist and left behind four children.

At around the same time, the body of Iber Angulo, an activist for black rights in the region, was found floating in a river. He had been abducted by an armed group on May 5.

Colombia is in the group of terror with rights activists the primary targets for violent gangs battling for control of the lucrative drug trafficking trade.

Since the landmark peace deal signed between the  government and Marxist guerrillas FARC in December 2016, 326 human rights activists have been killed.

One indigenous, black or peasant rights activist is murdered  every three days, and many in the Cauca department where Dagua lived, in which  43 percent of the population are indigenous or black.

Military checkpoints at the entrances to  Cauca warn of the dangers lurking in the region, which has accounted for  81  of  the  326 murders.

Juan Carlos  Chindicue is amongst those trying to escape a similarly gruesome fate . He's come to the village of Toez, near where Dagua was found, to hide out amongst the indigenous guard  - but they're armed with sticks

Phantom of Death

He left behind his wife in nearby Cali, one of the most violent cities in the world, with almost 50 murders per 100,000 citizens last year.

"There's always been this anxiety, this fear of dying in the streets, in the town, in the country, Chindicue, who looks after his two children aged  six and nine, told AFP.

" Now the phantom of death has awakened once again. "