The UN peace mission in Colombia condemned a spiral of violence in the country, saying it had documented 33 massacres so far this year.

The UN has also recorded 41 murders of former FARC combatants in the first half of 2020, a 10 percent increase on the same period last year.

FARC party said 224 former guerrillas have been murdered since the signature of the peace agreement in Havana on 24 November 2016.

At least 13 people were killed in two separate incidents in the last week alone.

The mission, set up to monitor adherence to a 2016 peace deal with the former FARC guerrillas, said it was investigating the deaths of 97 human rights defenders killed during the same period.

The violence was having a “serious humanitarian impact” in areas where illegal armed groups continued to operate, it said.

On Saturday, eight people were gunned down at a birthday party in Samaniego, in southwestern Narino department.

Authorities last Tuesday discovered the bodies of five Afro-Colombian teenagers in a sugar cane field near Cali.

Colombian and UN officials sounded a joint warning about the deteriorating security situation in the country, despite a lockdown against the spread of the coronavirus in place since March 25.

Crime gangs are believed to be responsible for nearly 80 percent of massacres in Colombia this year, the vast majority of them occurring in departments with “illegal coca-producing enclaves,” the UN human rights office said.

The UN defines a massacre as the killing of three or more people in the same event by the same group.