Twenty-five years after he was gunned down by police, Pablo Escobar’s legacy refuses to die in Medellin, the Colombian city where he ran his cocaine empire with a mix of brutality and largesse. The hulking white building is slated to be demolished in February, in a public implosion complete with stands for viewers to watch. According to Medellin officials, Colombia’s drug violence killed 46,612 people from 1983 to 1994. Sticky historyOn the other side of this cultural divide, Luz Maria Escobar is changing the tombstone at her brother’s grave ahead of the anniversary of his death, as a crowd of tourists looks on. “I see him like a second God,” says one resident, Maria Eugenia Castano, 44, as she lights a candle at an altar that bears Escobar’s photograph.

Source: Egypt Independent December 02, 2018 06:45 UTC