Guerrillas were blamed for 28 percent of the cases, and unknown groups were responsible for 16 percent. Most of those displaced by violence suffer in squalid camps or shantytowns outside major cities. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found that Colombia's displaced people often lack adequate shelter, sanitation and nutrition. Determined to take matters into their own hands, many groups of displaced people have seized unoccupied land and begun building independent towns, often siphoning the cities' electricity and water to supply their neighborhoods. It is a ramshackle pile of wood huts patched together by improvised power cables, separated by rivers of mud.
Warning signs posted on rickety fences and kiosks point the way to evacuation in case of a gas leak.
This is the way we live in Nelson Mandela. Ni o is determined to make Nelson Mandela a more livable place. As a member of the barrio's housing authority, he must ensure that residents receive power and running water. Twenty sectors of the barrio now have utilities, but the remaining four are far behind schedule. Ni o is also working to get the swampy streets filled with rocks from the nearby seashore.