10/02/2005
stampa
invia
"I am desplazados," says Luis Carlos. The desplazados are innocent victims of the war in Colombia and its devastating collateral damage.
They are people who the horrors of war have driven from their land, their homes,
their hopes, their future. Vulnerable men and women who have abandoned their livings
to flee continuous threats, attacks, and beatings.
difficult to get accustomed to life as a refugee. "Most of the are women, and
it is hard for them to find work. The men have it a little easier: some of them
get by as traveling peddlers." Coming to a city, even a little one like Cartagena,
requires a lot of adjustment for people accustomed to farming. "There’s no work
here, and we farmers don’t know what to do, all we know is work in the fields.
You need training for jobs in the city; How can technology help us if we can’t
use a computer?"
Life. "Our hope is to cultivate our own land again someday. I had fourteen hectares
of cacao, plantain, yucca, some livestock. When we left there it was harvest time
for cacao; we had already gathered 500 dollars worth. Here in the city we earn
less than $1.30 a day. We lived well in the country; it’s been a brutal change
for us."
For a warm meal. The story is the same for Yarleidy, a young Chocó woman who lives in Quibdó, the provincial capital in the northeast. She moved from Vigía del Fuerte, "a town near Bojayá, the village where more than 100 civilians were killed in combat between guerillas and paramilitaries in 2002."
stampainvia
Desplazados, Collateral Damage of the War
"I am desplazados," says Luis Carlos. The desplazados are innocent victims of the war in Colombia and its devastating collateral damage.
They are people who the horrors of war have driven from their land, their homes,
their hopes, their future. Vulnerable men and women who have abandoned their livings
to flee continuous threats, attacks, and beatings.They escaped with their children in their arms, in flight from armed conflict,
widespread violence, and massacres, carrying only the essentials of survival:
a blanket, water, bread. They have lived most of their lives in territory controlled
by FARC revolutionaries or by anti-FARC paramilitaries, where non-military government
services rarely reach. The desplazados are products of the Colombian war, tragic consequences, tragically similar to
all the victims of war throughout the world.
Eight hundred kilometers to survival.
Luis Carlos Vertel tells the story of his family: "Six years ago, we traveled
eight hundred kilometers for survival, coming to Cartagena da Apogadò in Chocó
province." The armed conflict is particularly bitter there, and it is
difficult to get accustomed to life as a refugee. "Most of the are women, and
it is hard for them to find work. The men have it a little easier: some of them
get by as traveling peddlers." Coming to a city, even a little one like Cartagena,
requires a lot of adjustment for people accustomed to farming. "There’s no work
here, and we farmers don’t know what to do, all we know is work in the fields.
You need training for jobs in the city; How can technology help us if we can’t
use a computer?"
The desplazados face these problems every day, but the new challenges inevitably create new
hopes and dreams. "We dream of returning home when there’s peace, we wouldn’t
give up life in the country even if they gave us a palace here in the city."
The children don’t go to school. Luis Carlos explains, "The children of refugees are often turned out of the
schools, because they’re believed to be the children of guerillas or paramilitaries.
Finally we built our own school, thanks to contributions from the PMA, so our
children can have the right to the same instruction as every other human being."
Life. "Our hope is to cultivate our own land again someday. I had fourteen hectares
of cacao, plantain, yucca, some livestock. When we left there it was harvest time
for cacao; we had already gathered 500 dollars worth. Here in the city we earn
less than $1.30 a day. We lived well in the country; it’s been a brutal change
for us."
For a warm meal. The story is the same for Yarleidy, a young Chocó woman who lives in Quibdó, the provincial capital in the northeast. She moved from Vigía del Fuerte, "a town near Bojayá, the village where more than 100 civilians were killed in combat between guerillas and paramilitaries in 2002."
For a warm meal, she is often forced to turn to a charitable organization run
by lay missionaries. "Most of us are refugees from Vigía del Fuerte, we’ve been
here two years. It’s not too bad here, they’ve treated us with dignity. Our first
necessity is food." Yarleidy also hopes the conflict ends soon. "I have a four
month old son named Keiler Andrés. We plan to go back, but only when the situation
is resolved, when the violence is over."
Alessandro Grandi
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