PBH / colombia (active forums more▼ | travelguide | pictures) / post

Thousands displaced in southern Colombia

22 Aug 2008
Source: UNHCR

We are becoming increasingly concerned about the humanitarian situation along southern Colombia's Pacific coast, where thousands of people have been displaced or caught in fighting.

In the Cauca region, fighting involving two rival guerrilla groups and the national army has forced some 800 people to flee to the small town of Lopez de Micay. Their condition is very precarious. Most are staying in school buildings, where the municipality has been providing one meal a day for the past week. The majority of the displaced belong to indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups; more than half of them are children.

In the neighbouring department of Nariño, further down the Pacific coast, some 1,000 people have fled their homes in the mountainous Andes region around the small town of Policarpa because of fighting between the Colombian army and an irregular armed group.

Many have taken refuge in Policarpa, which has been coping with repeated waves of forced displacement in the past few years. They are staying in the school and with the townspeople. The local and national authorities are providing humanitarian assistance with the help of international organizations.

In addition, an estimated 1,000 people are trapped further north by fighting around the villages of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa. There is great concern for their safety and we urge all actors in the conflict to respect the rights of all civilians to freedom of movement and to protection.

The situation in Nariño has been critical for more than two years. A number of interlinked factors often result in forced displacement in this Pacific department, which borders Ecuador to the south. These factors include the presence of irregular armed groups, fighting, landmines, killings and summary executions, as well as the cultivation and trafficking of illicit crops like cocaine.

Earlier this week, the provincial authorities said that more than 100,000 people are registered as displaced in Nariño – more than a quarter of them in the past year alone. This trend is continuing over the entire region. In the past two months, there have been cases of mass displacements in the mountainous Cordillera region, in several municipalities along the coast and in La Victoria on the border with Ecuador. Several communities have suffered months of being cut off, including in the territory of the Awa indigenous people.

We are also concerned about the situation along the rest of the Pacific coast, including the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Choco. Last year, the government registered more than 70,000 people as displaced in these four departments. Preliminary figures for the past six months of the year show a similar, or worsening, trend.

UNHCR has been present in Colombia for 10 years, supporting national efforts to assist and protect a large population of internally displaced people. We have 12 offices in the country and work in close cooperation with other UNHCR bureaux in neighbouring countries hosting Colombian refugees, includng Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama.

UNHCR news

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/bc249c321d71bef12f1e76e...

By pobrecito on Aug 23, 2008, 16:20 in Politics & the war.

pobrecito says on Aug 23, 2008, 16:21:

bump

De que vale la vida si cuando la tenemos parece muerta. La vida es para sentirla, para vibrar, para luchar, para combatir. Eso justifica nuestro paso por la tierra........Jaime Pardo Leal

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Monita Linda says on Aug 23, 2008, 18:01:

Not nice. It should be noted that even before this situation, many people in the Nariño area were already very poor and a family of 8 children with unemployed parents is not strange. I remember a schoolmate telling me that when they went to look there for an empleada/niñera, many people just begged them to take their children because they were unable to take care of them. The only thing they asked was to feed them, and they would work for free.

Poor but Preppy ______Colombia: the only risk is wanting to lay.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ColombianoGringo (Moderator) says on Aug 23, 2008, 18:55:

A lot of these people end up on the outskirts of Neiva and Popayan in some horrible shanty towns. The poverty and squalor in which they live is astounding. Some estimates claim over 100,000 displaced people living in or around Neiva, which has a "regular" population of about 400,000. You can imagine the drain on social services and the massive increase in street crime. It is a terrible, shameful situation. It's easy to forget that "Seguridad Democratica" doesn't mean much if you don't live somewhere relatively nice.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Buongone says on Aug 23, 2008, 22:02:

SAD STORY. Those people really need some help.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

island girl says on Aug 24, 2008, 08:42:

CG - I was in Neiva recently and was shocked when I stared noticing families on the street asking for money or food or clothes with makeshift signs describing their plight of being displaced, heard stories as well, very sad. Until that point I had heard about the displacement in Colombia but had not seen the hardcore evidence. And that was not anywhere near the shantytown part, so I can only imagine how many people are there with similar tales.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Monita Linda says on Aug 24, 2008, 09:25:

You can find many displaced people here in Palmira too.

Poor but Preppy ______Colombia: the only risk is wanting to lay.

0 funny, 0 helpful.