Colombia: more than 27,000 displaced in the first quarter of 2021

Some 27,435 people were displaced in Colombia in the first quarter, 177% more than in the same period of 2020 due to an upsurge in violence, the Ombudsman announced on Monday (April 26th).

Read also: Colombia: where is the peace process with the Farc?

Between January 1 and March 31, there were 65 "

", nearly double the 35 listed in the first three months of the previous year, said this public body for the protection of human rights. .

The main causes are homicides, forced recruitment by armed groups, threats, the presence of explosives such as anti-personnel mines, as well as fighting between guerrillas, police forces and / or narcotics gangs. traffic, according to the same source.

Internal war

Undermined for nearly sixty years by a complex internal war, Colombia believed it could turn the page thanks to the signing of the peace agreement with the Farc rebellion in 2016, ten years after the disarmament of far-right paramilitary militias. . But a new cycle of violence is affecting isolated regions, with an explosion in the number of armed groups vying for control of the former strongholds of the former guerrilla forces of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

The UN on Monday rejected in a statement "

". She notably mentioned the assassination of seven former guerrillas in eight days.

According to the Communes Party, founded by the ex-Farc after their disarmament, 271 ex-rebels have been killed since 2016. The independent Observatory Indepaz has already listed 31 massacres (simultaneous murder of at least three people) having killed 116 people. since the beginning of the year. He had recorded 91 massacres in 2020. On Sunday, five people were shot dead in a coffee plantation in the department of Antioquia (north-west). The armed conflict, which since the 1960s has involved guerrillas, paramilitaries and security forces, has claimed more than nine million victims in Colombia (dead, missing and displaced).