New Focus on Meeting the Challenges of Colombia's Displaced People

Baltimore, May 16, 2003 — The predicament of displaced people in Colombia is the focus of a new Lutheran World Relief-funded report and a conference held in Washington, D.C. this week, co-sponsored by LWR and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

The report focuses on the epicenter of Colombia's humanitarian crisis, the southern province of Choco. Ten times more people than the national average were expelled from their homes in Choco last year as a result of Colombia's civil war. Hardest hit are the Afro-Colombian residents of Choco.

"Although the government has made efforts to respond to the problem of displaced people, the depth and breadth of that response is totally inadequate so far," LWR Latin America director, Kim Krasevac-Szekely, noted. "There is a lack of support and of political will." Over two million Colombians are internally displaced because of a long-running conflict between paramilitary forces, guerrillas and the national army.

Dr. Francis Deng, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, gave the opening address at the conference. In attendance were representatives of the Colombian government, USAID, congressional staffers and non-governmental organizations.

The report, prepared by the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement, an LWR partner organization in Colombia, calls for "creation of a life with more dignity for Choco's inhabitants" through greater assistance to displaced people that is built around the participation of local communities and carried out according to the norms of international humanitarian law.