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News > Colombia

Colombian NGOs Displacement of Indigenous People From Chocó

  • The Mayor's Office of Medellín emphasized that most of the displaced persons are women and children.

    The Mayor's Office of Medellín emphasized that most of the displaced persons are women and children. | Photo: @WRadioColombia

Published 4 June 2022
Opinion

The Mayor's Office recorded that out of the 30 municipalities of the territory of Chocó, Medellín has attended population coming from 27 regions.

Colombian organizations have denounced the displacement of 159 indigenous members of the Embera Katío community in the territory of Chocó to Medellín in Antioquia, another of the territories that make up the South American nation.

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The Mayor's Office of Medellín, who verified the information, emphasized that most of the displaced persons are women and children, where the communities claim multiple threats from illegal armed groups in the El Dieciocho reservation in the municipality of Carmen de Atrato.  

The technical director of the Attention and Reparation to Victims team of the Secretariat of Non-Violence, Maciel Echavarría, stated that the prevention subcommittee was promoted in an extraordinary manner.

"In addition, we are investigating the reasons that led the families to leave in order to mitigate the risks, because what interests us is that in these territories their rights are also guaranteed," said the official, despite the fact that organizations have exposed the armed conflict and the presence of paramilitaries in the territories as one of the causes.

The Mayor's Office recorded that out of the 30 municipalities of the department of Chocó, Medellín has attended population coming from 27 regions where the largest number of families have come from Quibdó, Bagadó, Medio San Juan, Alto Baudó, El Carmen de Atrato, Istmina, Medio Baudó, Río Sucio, Bahía Solano and Río Quito.

Medellin continues to be one of the cities with the largest number of displaced persons, according to the Mayor's Office, with data that show that between January 2021 and May 2022 the entity has assisted 3,905 persons (1,359 households) displaced from the department of Chocó, Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations.

For its part, the Colombia Informa platform reflected that the increase in the humanitarian crisis during 2021, as a result of the growing conflict and the territorial dispute, could be evidenced in the report Humanitarian Challenges 2022 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Colombia Informa stated that 486 people were victims of explosive devices, of which 50 died, an increase of 24 percent compared to 2020.

Likewise, other elements pointed out that there were 168 cases of disappearance, where Norte de Santander, Nariño, Cauca, Arauca, Valle del Cauca and Antioquia are the departments with the highest number of reported cases, totaling a percentage of 79 percent, and 800 people were affected by massive displacements and 77,568 by individual displacements as of December 2021.

Similarly, 108 people were affected by confinements in the territories in conflict, where Chocó with 78.5 percent of the cases was the most affected department, followed by Antioquia with 11 percent.

"The impact of this conflict is received by indigenous, black and peasant communities, located in areas rich in natural resources and with great productive capacity, but which historically have been impoverished and abandoned by the State", Colombia Informa stated.

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