Eleven Indians killed by lightning during ceremony to be left unburied

The the location of a lightning strike in Santa Marta, Colombia. PHOTO: AFP

BOGOTA: Eleven Wiwa Indians killed by lightning during a tribal ceremony in Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountains will be left unburied where they died according to their traditions, an official said Sunday.

The community of about 60 families will abandon their remote village in the wake of Monday's tragedy, but it was not yet clear where they would go, said Jose Gregorio Rodriguez, an advisor on the Wiwas at the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, which represents the country's 800,000 indigenous people.