Colombia has one of the highest internally displaced populations (IDPs) in the world and the humanitarian crisis shows no signs of abating. Displacement remains the most serious social problem facing Colombia today.
The following questions and answers discuss the causes of displacement and what the Colombian government is doing to tackle the crisis.
HOW MANY COLOMBIANS HAVE BEEN DISPLACED?
Putting a figure on the number of IDPs in Colombia is a politically charged and sensitive issue. There are vast discrepancies between non-governmental organisation (NGO) estimates and official figures.
The government says 3.2 million Colombians have been driven from their homes since 1997, the year the Colombian government officially started registering IDPs. So far this year, nearly 280,000 IDPs have received humanitarian aid, the government says. But a leading NGO, the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) in Bogotá, estimates that 4.2 million people have been uprooted, around 10 per cent of Colombia�s population.
WHY HAVE MILLIONS OF COLOMBIANS BEEN UPROOTED FROM THEIR HOMES?
Marxist guerrillas from The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been waging a war against the Colombian government and the countryÂ?s armed forces since the 1960s.
Violence has directly forced millions of civilians, often living in rural areas, to flee their homes and seek refuge in ColombiaÂ?s main cities.
HOW HAS COLOMBIAÂ?S DISPLACEMENT CRISIS CHANGED IN RECENT YEARS?
In the 1990s and early 2000, the majority of IDPs fled to escape fighting between the FARC and government troops. Civilians also fled in fear of threats and killings carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups.
Since 2005, increasingly people have been forced from their homes because of drug-related violence. New criminal gangs vying for control of the cocaine trade are forcing civilians living in and around areas used to grow coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, to flee. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities living near drug-smuggling routes along the Pacific Coast are particularly at risk of being displaced.
Displacement is also concentrated along ColombiaÂ?s long borders, particularly along the border with Ecuador. Regular massive displacement, involving hundreds, and even thousands of civilians deserting entire villages and municipalities at any one time, has largely stopped. Nowadays, civilians tend to flee in smaller groups of around 50 people.
A US-backed campaign to spray coca fields is also causing farmers to leave their lands, say local NGOs. However, the Colombian government and some aid agencies do not recognise uprooted coca farmers as IDPs and define them as economic migrants.
WHAT IS THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT DOING TO STEM DISPLACEMENT?
In 2004, ColombiaÂ?s constitutional court ruled that the government was not providing adequate aid, support and services such as health care, education and housing, to IDPS as prescribed by Colombian law. The historic ruling deemed the governmentÂ?s response to IDPs as Â?unconstitutional.Â? Ministers were summoned to the court to defend their record on defending IDP rights.
Following the landmark ruling, ColombiaÂ?s displacement crisis has taken on a greater urgency and the government has stepped up its aid efforts and spent a record amount of money on its IDP response.
As part of the governmentÂ?s prevention strategy, an early warning system was recently introduced, allowing local government officials to raise the alarm about communities caught in the middle of violence and at risk of being displaced.
WHAT DO NGOs SAY NEEDS TO BE DONE?
NGOs highlight that over-stretched government agencies are unable to cope with the stream of IDPs descending on cities every day.
As many as thirteen different government entities, including four ministries, are involved in providing aid to displaced families, making it difficult to provide an integrated response.
By law, the government should provide humanitarian aid, such as food parcels, cooking utensils and blankets, to displaced families immediately. But many IDPs say it can take up to six months to receive any type of government aid.
The biggest problem remains the long standing issue of unequal land distribution and ill-defined land rights in Colombia. A dire lack of land reform means few IDPs receive arable land and distributing land to displaced families is plagued with delays and corruption scandals.
Aid to IDPs needs to be more sustainable and aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty. NGOs are urging the government to focus on job creation and training, and provide more micro-credits so that IDPs can start small businesses.
Many displaced families eventually hope to return home. But their homelands are often littered with landmines planted by FARC rebels, which they say the government is not clearing quickly enough.
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