One in three of the 280,000 people displaced in Colombia during 2010 were supposedly from areas that officially had been “consolidated” by the government.
According to a report by CODHES, a Colombian NGO that monitors displacement in the country, there were around 280,000 people displaced during 2010, while over 90,000 of them were from areas designated as “consolidated” by the government.
The study, entitled “Consolidation of what?,” emphasizes the government’s inability to protect its people from the threats and violence of armed groups.
Speaking to Colombia Reports, Jorge Rojas, the president of CODHES, cited that the report demonstrates “the existence of a structural problem” in dealing with the issue.
He notes that “the majority of displaced people leave in order to avoid being victims of the violence,” with the government not sufficiently ensuring a sense of security.
Rojas added that the displacements occur “above all in the department of Antioquia,” although, paradoxically, the department bears the “highest percentage of expulsions but also a high percentage of arrivals of displaced people.”
The report maintains the U.N. findings last year, in which Colombia was declared the country with the most internally displaced people in the world.
The latest numbers cite Colombia as having a total of 5.2 million displaced people, of whom 389,000 are living as refugees abroad, which keeps the country above other countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan.
