Hundreds of Colombian indians displaced by combat
Source: Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Fighting between the army and Marxist rebels has forced hundreds of indians in western Colombia from their homes and they remained huddled in a nearby elementary school on Wednesday, afraid to return. The 744 Awa tribe members joined more than 2 million Colombians displaced by the country's four-decade-old insurgency by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the United Nations and indigenous leaders said. The combat erupted on Tuesday on an indian reservation near the Pacific coast town of Tumaco, Narino province. "Every time there is a battle like this people have to leave to avoid being killed in cross-fire or captured by one side and accused of cooperating with the other," local Awa tribe leader Jose Libardo told Reuters by telephone from Tumaco. "Now they are afraid to leave the school to go home because the FARC may have planted land mines in the area," he said. Thousands are killed, kidnapped or maimed by land mines in Colombia every year. Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities are especially hard hit as the FARC battles government troops for control of rural areas. The war also involves right-wing paramilitaries who, like the FARC, fund their operations with Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade. Tuesday's battle is the latest in a series of major displacements in Narino. Since the start of this year there have been 18 displacements of 50 people or more in the province, says the U.N. "Unfortunately we do not see any progress in sight in terms of preventing these displacements," said Marie-Helene Verney, a spokeswoman for U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. "We are very concerned about the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Narino, which is pushing people across the border into Ecuador," she said. Last month U.N. refugee agency workers in Ecuador received more than 700 people in one week alone escaping from Narino. The Colombian government says 7,700 people from the province were forced from their homes by violence last year while the country as a whole registered 200,000 displacements.
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