“PAX shocked by murder of social activist Nestor Ivan Martinez” PAX is deeply shocked by the murder of Nestor Ivan Martinez, the leader of a social movement in Cesar, the Colombian mining region where European power companies obtain their blood coal. The organization he represented received serious threats two weeks previously in a pamphlet published by a new illegal armed group…PAX fears that this targeted killing could mark the start for a new wave of violence in the mining region, where paramilitary violence has already claimed tens of thousands of victims…Nestor Martinez was involved in several social movements and was a symbol for the fight against the negative impact of the coal mines in the Cesar region in northeastern Colombia. He was one of the activists who opposed the expansion of the mines owned by the American mining company Drummond. Last Sunday, 11 September 2016, two unknown armed men forced their entry into the farm of Martinez's brother in the village of Chiriguaná. They tied up his brother and his brother's wife, waited for Martinez to arrive and then shot him in the head with two bullets before the eyes of his family.