Forced displacement doubled in Colombia in first semester of 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mass and forced displacement in Colombia doubled in the first semester of 2021, compared to the previous year, and 102 events affected 44,290 people from 15,340 families, according to the latest report published today by the Ombudsman’s Office.

The previous year’s data showed that between January 1 and June 30, 2020, 41 displacement events affected 13,912 people from 4,311 families.

“We see a 100% increase in displacement events, but we see a 256% increase in the universe of people affected,” said the Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, at a press conference, where he stressed, “the significant increase” of this phenomenon.

In addition to forced displacement, caused by the worsening security situation in some parts of the country, there were also 68 events affecting 192 communities with 36,101 people in the first six months of the year.

“We have seen an increase due to both security situations (…) and also in accordance with the dynamics that the pandemic has brought us where illegal actors have taken advantage of this situation of confinement in many communities to achieve territorial control of routes and irregular exploitation of minerals,” explained Camargo.

The main causes of displacement or forced confinement were threats, homicides, forced recruitment of minors. Still, they also occurred due to explosive devices or clashes between armed groups among themselves or with the Army.

These are cases such as the 1,946 indigenous people and peasants who were forced to move from Tierralta, in the north of the country, since mid-April due to the “continuous fighting” between the public forces and an armed group, and of whom more than 467 families have been settled in the central park of the city of Monteria for three months.

THE PACIFIC COAST IS THE MOST AFFECTED

The area most affected by both phenomena is the Pacific coast, where armed groups fight over drug trafficking corridors or illegal exploitation of minerals and illicit extractions. This usually coincides with the departments where there are more massacres and selective murders of social leaders.

Thus, in Nariño occurred more than half of the episodes of mass displacement this year, with 14,708 people affected; followed by Valle del Cauca (with 25 episodes and 9,189 people) and Cauca (14 events affecting 4,700 people).

“Those most affected by forced displacement” said the ombudsman “are ethnic communities (indigenous and Afro-descendants) with an equivalent of 59% and non-ethnic communities (peasants mainly) at 41%.”

forced confinement was imposed mainly on 52 communities in Chocó, in the north of the Pacific, where 19,897 people were limited, followed by Nariño (17 communities with 7,314 people) and Antioquia (29 communities with 3,629 people). In this regard, 98.5% of those affected by the confinements were ethnic communities.

REINFORCEMENT OF PREVENTION

Due to this worrying increase, the Ombudsman’s Office asked the authorities to take urgent measures to control the violence and threats caused by these phenomena.

He also announced that the Ombudsman’s Office would activate a “prevention route” to reinforce the early warning system sent by the Ombudsman’s Office to the authorities and security forces, thus allowing for greater monitoring of the alerting situation.

Thus, they will focus on promoting “prevention and protection actions with a territorial and differentiated approach to protect threatened communities from the projected risk scenarios” and on managing “inter-institutional actions” so that the alerts are not ignored by the institutions.

Since this system for preventing human rights violations began in 2017, 210 early warnings have been issued, ranging from the risk of forced recruitment of minors, the lives of indigenous communities or leaders, to displacement.