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View all search resultsMedellin tourist trail pays tribute to Escobar victims
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A couple looks at the Monaco building, which was once home to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, as it is covered with pictures of victims of his Medellin Cartel, in Medellin, Colombia, on December 11, 2018. (AFP/Joaquin Sarmiento)
T
he abandoned building where Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar lived will be covered in posters paying tribute to the victims of his Medellin Cartel before it is torn down next year.
The exhibition is part of a move by municipal authorities to tell the other side of Escobar's story -- that of his victims -- to counter a surge of television series glamorizing his life and that of his cartel.
"Respect our pain, honor our victims (1983-1994). 46,612 fewer lives," reads the message on one of the posters that now greet Medillin's "narco-tourists" flocking to the Monaco apartment block.
Portraits of slain journalist Guillermo Cano, gunned down in 1986, former presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan and police chief Valdemar Quintero -- both murdered in 1989 -- are emblazoned over a message that reads, in English: "It is not fiction, it is reality."
Read also: Pablo Escobar museum in Colombia closed down
Mayor Federico Gutierrez told reporters that the tourist site had become a "symbol of illegality".
"Now, there are messages that should lead us to reflect," he said.
The posters will remain affixed to the building until municipal workers tear it down on February 22, more than 25 years after Escobar was shot dead by police in 1993.
The former luxury block will be replaced by a municipal park.
