A young Colombian refugee fetches water in Nelson Mandela City.
Photo by ELIANA APONTE
NELSON MANDELA CITY, Colombia (Reuters) - The refugee children who run barefoot down "Hope Street" have bloated bellies and are covered in sores. Their homes are shacks built from tin sheets, cardboard and black plastic.It is the same on "Victory Street," "Bethlehem Street" and the labyrinth of other dirt tracks that criss-cross the hills of Nelson Mandela City, a sprawling shantytown of some 50,000 predominantly black inhabitants.A municipal billboard on the approach to the settlement, on the outskirts of Colombia's historic Caribbean coast resort of Cartagena, declares "Program of Dreams and Opportunities." But there is little evidence of that amid the shattered lives of thousands of "internally displaced persons" who fled rural backwaters after outlaw gunmen of the left and right stormed their villages, massacring relatives and neighbors.As one of the largest displaced communities in the country, Nelson Mandela City is home to the forgotten victims of Latin America's longest-running war between Communist guerrillas, ultra-right death squads and state security forces that has cost 35,000 lives in just the last 10 years.In the last five years, more than 1.1 million mostly Mestizo or black peasants, from a total population of 40 million, have fled their small-holdings to escape the crossfire of conflict, creating one of the worst internal refugee problems outside Africa, according to United Nations officials."When the gunmen arrive you feel defenseless and can do nothing but bury your dead. After, you feel fear and cowardice," said Jose Vicente Ortiz, who has been displaced twice.BELTS OF MISERYThe first time, unidentified gunmen murdered his five stepsons near the town of Turbo in the banana-growing region of northwest Uraba. Later he fled to Nelson Mandela City after another armed gang killed his cousin and a brother in his new home of Acandi, near Colombia's northern border with Panama."I was not able to bring anything with me. I just tried to look after myself and my four children. I couldn't sell anything, neither my plot of land or my crops," he told Reuters in the refugee citadel.Last year alone more than 288,000 Colombians, mostly peasants, abandoned their homes, the nongovernmental Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (Codhes) said. The worst-hit areas, it said, were in the north, in the provinces surrounding Cartagena, which has a population of 920,000.But there were no headline-grabbing international humanitarian crises since only around 11,000 seeped across borders into neighboring Venezuela, Panama or Ecuador.The United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR) and the Colombian government refer to the others as "internally displaced persons," classifying only those who spill across borders as bona fide refugees. UNHCR has no mandate to fund projects to help Colombia's displaced.The government's National Solidarity Network says it spends $120 million annually to tackle the issue but most refugees just quit their homes and melt into "belts of misery" around major cities such as Bogota, northwest Medellin and Cartagena.IN HONOR OF NELSON MANDELA"The phenomenon (of the displaced) is very serious. Maybe this is the fourth-worst situation in the world," Leila Lima, UNHCR representative in Colombia, said, listing Colombia just behind Angola, Burundi and Sudan.Nelson Mandela City was founded in December 1994 when 200 refugees and poor people invaded vacant lots on the edge of Cartagena, once colonial Spain's largest port in the Americas."In honor of that great president and black leader, we gave this area the name Nelson Mandela City," said Manuel Lopez, one of the community's leaders. There is no paved road into the area, no toilets or septic tanks, and the nearest running water supply is a standpipe half an hour walk away."It's difficult to get water here. A tanker truck used to come but then it stopped because the road is no good. Sometimes a man comes with a donkey selling water," said Edilma Perez, 28, who fled political violence in neighboring Sucre province.Water costs residents, few of whom have a steady job, anywhere from 10 to 40 U.S. cents a gallon.Perez's five children have broken out in a rash, apparently due to poor sanitary conditions caused by flyblown pits of human waste. Like many of their playmates, they are daubed in purple and green antiseptic liquid but still scratch uncontrollably.Two tumbledown blocks away, 20 youngsters are crammed into a 40-square-foot (4-sq.-metre) hut that serves as an impromptu schoolroom. Inside, the cardboard and tin roof magnifies the heat, which has already soared to 86 degrees (30 C) outside."Children try to study but sometimes there's apathy because they have no food in their bellies. ... There's a lot of malnourishment," teacher Alvaro Patermina said.The teachers also have been going hungry too these days. City Hall has not paid their wages for the last five months.Cartagena Mayor Gina Benedetti said some $15 million had been set aside for an "integrated development project," drawing on public and private sector finances, to provide land titles, utilities and schools in Nelson Mandela City. But many residents believe official corruption, widespread at all levels, means most of the funds will never reach those most in need.Colombia's government is locked in slow-moving peace talks with the largest guerrilla force, but ongoing fighting ensures up to 50 new arrivals a day in Nelson Mandela City, according to one of its founders, Lazaro Perez, 34."The peace talks mean nothing," he said. "Only when the government begins to help the poor will the war finish."
RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2009 - Former Colombian hostage Sigifredo Lopez prepares to hug his son on his arrival at Cali airport February 5, 2009. Colombia's FARC rebels on Thursday ...
