At least 35,000 people have been killed in Colombia since the early 1990s, and about 2.73 million have been forced to flee their homes in a complex war that’s been going on since 1948.
In a poll of "forgotten" emergencies released by AlertNet in March 2005, aid experts chose Colombian displacement as the world's sixth-ranked neglected crisis. Here they explain why.
Four decades of conflict have left Colombia with the third largest displaced population in the world. Only Angola and Sudan in Africa have bigger internally displaced populations than Colombia.
Two to three million people in Colombia have fled their homes because of threats, fear, assassinations and massacres associated with lawlessness and drug-trafficking.
Life for the displaced is extremely harsh, with most living in conditions of extreme poverty and struggling for access to sufficient food.
James Morris
Chief executive, U.N. World Food Programme
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After 40-plus years of fighting, the rural population continues to suffer enormously from this conflict, fueled by paramilitary and guerilla groups fighting the government of Colombia.
President Uribe recently announced that there is no conflict and no humanitarian crisis in the country; he says they have a problem with terrorists.
In the meantime, 3 million people, mostly poor, rural, many Afro-Colombians or indigenous are internally displaced, and at least 200,000 people have been killed. Religious and civil society leaders are targeted for their work for peace and for their work on behalf of the poor.
Kathryn Wolford
President, Lutheran World Relief, USA
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The constant stream of Colombians fleeing conflict-affected areas of Colombia is a complex emergency which is often ignored by the media. These flows of displaced persons have impacts on neighboring countries like Ecuador as well as countries of asylum like the U.S., which seem to be closing their doors to Colombian asylum seekers.
Anna Mecagni
MALD '05 Candidate, Fletcher School, Tufts University, Boston
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