Magdalena

The River Magdalena, named after Mary Magdalene, is the most important river in Colombia. Its source is the Andes Mountains, at an altitude of 3,650 metres, from where it crosses the country covering 1,600 kilometres before flowing into the Caribbean Sea. Halfway along its course, in the area called Magdalena Medio, we find natural whirlpools that bring piece of wood and other materials to the surface.

Since the beginning of the armed conflict in the sixties, the river has also been spewing out the bodies of murdered people. Guerrillas, paramilitary forces and local mafias would throw the victims’ corpses into the Magdalena to eliminate all traces of evidence. Political tensions and drug trafficking hastened a war with a death toll of over two hundred thousand.

This Project is the winner of the Fourth Fotocanal Photobook Competition 2019, organized by the Comunidad de Madrid and Ediciones Anómalas.

Felipe Romero Beltrán (Bogotá, Colombia.1992) is a documentary photographer based in Madrid, Spain. He has developed projects in different countries as Colombia, Argentina, Israel and Spain. Felipe focuses on long-term projects that approach social issues related to political conflicts in Latin America and Spain. He is currently developing a PhD program on photography at the Complutense Univerisity of Madrid and at the same time He is working for magazines as a documentary photographer.