Colombia on Tuesday rejected media reports that U.N. refugee agency UNHCR claims that the country has the world’s largest number of people displaced by violence.
According to Accion Social, the presidential agency in charge of displacement, there is no U.N. report supporting the statement Tuesday that Colombia’s displaced population is the largest in the world. The agency said that statements made by the Colombian NGO in charge of monitoring displacement regarding the magnitude are untrue.
The presidential agency sent out a press statement, saying that according to its own statistics, 3.5 million people have been displaced in Colombia since the 1950s.
In the press statement, Accion Social said that global data on displacement and refugees can not be used to compare displacement between countries because of the numerous ways of counting the phenomenon.
According to the presidential agency, the number of people displaced by violence has been going down since 2008.
