Rescue teams and Colombian authorities continued their search on Tuesday for the missing left leg of Italian biologist Alessandro Coatti, whose dismembered body was found in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.

Coatti, 42, was a molecular biologist who had been traveling through South America after working for eight years at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) in London.

He had been staying in a hotel in Santa Marta since April 3 and was later reported missing. His dismembered body began to be discovered on April 6, when parts were found inside a suitcase abandoned near a football stadium in an area known as Bureche.

“We’re conducting the search along the riverbanks and in the water to identify possible spots where, due to the river’s current, the missing left leg might be located,” Karlotz Omaña García, director of the Magdalena Civil Defense, told The Associated Press. Despite covering a 500-meter radius, the limb was not found.

Authorities have not named any suspects or shared possible motives. A reward of more than $11,000 has been offered for information leading to those responsible for the foreign scientist’s murder.

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Police continue to reconstruct Coatti’s final movements. According to Colonel Jaime Ríos, head of the Santa Marta Metropolitan Police, the Italian biologist arrived in Colombia in January and had visited several locations, including Medellín, before traveling to Santa Marta.

Security footage shows Coatti was in downtown Santa Marta the night before his body was found, the colonel added.

Santa Marta, a popular Caribbean tourist destination, is known for its clear beaches. Police believe Coatti may also have visited Tayrona Park, a protected coastal area located about 34 kilometers (21 miles) from the city center.

The anti-Chavista party Movement for Venezuela (MPV) denounced on Monday that it was “prevented” from submitting its candidates for the regional and legislative elections on May 25, elections rejected by opposition leaders Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado.

“MPV, being an active and recognized party in the National Electoral Council (CNE), was prevented from submitting candidates for the current electoral process,” stated the political group through a communiqué on X.

Additionally, the group denounced that its Secretary-General, Simón Calzadilla, was “suddenly disqualified,” as the opposition leader warned last Friday. He also explained that he attempted to access the CNE’s automated candidate submission system but, as he added, the portal showed that he was not authorized to create a user and submit the MPV candidates.

For the party, its “strong decision” to participate in the May elections “highlighted the true nature of this electoral process,” which it described as “extremely flawed.”

Nicolás Maduro, who swore in for a third term in January following his controversial re-election, called on Monday for the “working class” and the “armed people” to gather for a concentration on May 1st for peace, as part of the celebration of International Workers’ Day.

“Let’s have a powerful march of the working class, the combat bodies, and the Bolivarian National Militia in all the cities of the country, from end to end, working class and armed people in the streets shouting for peace,” said the chavista leader in a broadcast on the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), surrounded by military authorities.

He also stated that Venezuela is more armed than “ever” to “defend the sacred dream of a free homeland, the sacred soil of a heroic land, Venezuela.”

Maduro called on all military personnel to “stay in shape” with a “deployment capacity” and also to have “a very clear view of the entire national territory.”