Coca cultivation rose in Colombia in 2011after seven years of stagnation, said an as of yet unpublished report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, reported Colombian newspaper El Tiempo Monday.
As coca is the raw material used in the production of the illegal substance cocaine, the Colombian government received the report with “concern,” Colombia’s W Radio reported.
The UN report said that drug production in Colombia was increasingly concentrated in the border regions with Venezuela and Ecuador.
The regions that registered the greatest increases in coca cultivation were Catatumbo, near the Venezuelan border, and Chocó, Colombia’s westernmost department on the Pacific coast. Both these regions have been considered hotbeds of left-wing rebel movements like FARC and ELN and neo-paramilitary groups like Los Rastrojos and Los Urabeños.