The Body Hunters
Colombia's real-life CSI squad
"There was a saying that went, if you're not good enough to kill, you're good enough to be killed". After being forcibly recruited as a teenager, Helmer spent years as a paramilitary soldier in the midst of Colombia’s darkest years of conflict, as the country was torn up between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and drug cartels. He became a foot soldier and took part in assassinations, murders and ruthless massacres. “In a war you get used to the fact that a lifeless body is like any other object.” Now it is down to the authorities to begin the forensic process and restore some measures of justice to the country’s dark past. Prosecutor Miguel Villadiego is in charge of the operation to search for, identify, and return the missing victims of Colombia's armed conflict. He works to provide families with closure; ”it helps the living victims heal every time we deliver a body to them”. Through cutting-edge forensic tech and survivor testimony, Colombia’s body hunters aim to bring closure to families - and accountability to history.
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