16,000 performers hold world’s biggest concert in Bogota
STORY: Around 16,000 musicians, singers and children choir members, grouped together by the Bogota’s Philharmonic Orchestra, performed among others Beethoven's 9th Symphony and 'Latinoamerica', a song originally by the Puerto Rican group "Calle 13", famous throughout Latin America for its lyrics criticising social and political issues.
The event in Bogota's Simon Bolivar Metropolitan Park was set to honour the final report by Colombia's truth commission, released in June.
David Garcia, General Director of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, described the report as "very painful", and told Reuters they wanted "to pay tribute to all the victims of Colombia" with the performance.
Established as part of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, the truth commission was set to expose the truth behind human rights abuses committed during Colombia’s almost 60-year internal conflict.
From just 1985 to 2018, 450,664 people were killed in the conflict, according to the final report, and until 2019, over 7.7 million people were displaced.
