Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups. “We’re hoping to alert the Colombian and Ecuadorian state about this string of rights violations so they’ll take the necessary and urgent measures, and prevent the continuing violation of human rights happening on both sides of the border,” Ecuador Ombudsman César Córdova Valverde said at a press conference in Bogotá. “A porous border, with gaps in state presence, favors the interests of illegal groups working in coca, illegal mining, illegal logging of the forest and other illicit economies,” said Colombia Ombudsman Carlos Camargo Assis at the press conference