Colombia: Displaced Wounaan Look for Government Support in Guaranteeing Safety

Colombia: Displaced Wounaan Look for Government Support in Guaranteeing Safety
Written by Allison Rosenblatt
Monday, 13 July 2015 08:38

On June 18, the United Nations Refugee Agency released a report stating that, “...one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum.” In Colombia, a country plagued with more than 50 years of armed conflict, the number currently stands at six million, making Colombia second only to Syria with twelve million displaced people.

While these numbers alone are staggering, the reality of this statistic plays out in the daily lives of so many Colombians. The indigenous Wounaan people are some of the latest to feel the effects of the displacement that characterizes Colombia's armed conflict. The Wounaan have traditionally lived peacefully along the banks of the San Juan River that leads out to the Pacific Ocean near the port city of Buenaventura. Yet today, hundreds of their people make up a part of the six million who have had to flee their homes.

Due to the San Juan River's access to the ocean, the area has become a prime channel for commerce, both legal and illegal. Drug trafficking and illegal gold mining plague the region and the armed actors who run these businesses actively try to gain control over the strategic waterway at the expense of the indigenous groups who have lived peacefully in the area for centuries. Many of the Wounaan communities are experiencing confinement as armed men, said to belong to paramilitary groups, enter their properties and threaten to kill them if they leave to go hunt, fish, or tend to their crops. In some instances, certain families within the community will decide to flee while others choose to stay behind, reluctantly ripping apart the social fabric of their town. In other instances, entire communities will be displaced at once, leaving their houses and schools abandoned with nothing but the wind running through their doors.

Life in a Sports Arena

One such displaced community is Unión Aguas Claras, a town made up of 343 people from 62 families. The community experienced a number of threats against them that led up to their displacement on September 25, 2014. Leaders claim that members of the Colombian military trampled many of their food crops and on a different occasion, six armed alleged paramilitaries entered their property and demanded to be housed for several days. The community refused the paramilitaries' demands and the men eventually left, threatening them in the process.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/5387-colombia-displaced-wounaan-look-for-government-support-in-guaranteeing-safety