Drugs and hunger: What awaits Colombia’s newly displaced families
By: The New Humanitarian
Tags: Displaced Persons, Conflict, World, Colombia, Drugs

Last year, 32-year-old Ana Maria* and her four children were forced to flee for their lives after guerrillas entered their village in Tumaco, southwestern Colombia.

“They said they were going to kill us, so I had to take my children and leave. We had to leave immediately; we did not even have time to get our things,” Maria told The New Humanitarian.

Maria’s first thought was to seek refuge in Bogotá. But after finding it too expensive to live in the capital, she and her children ended up in Soacha Alta.

Situated in the barren mountainside above the million-strong city of Soacha, which is on the outskirts of Bogotá, this illegal slum is overrun by criminal gangs hawking drugs to children on street corners.

“I do not feel safe here,” Maria said. “My children are not safe here. I am worried about the micro-traffickers [dealers who sell drugs in small amounts for home consumption] recruiting my children.”

She and her children are part of a new wave of displacement in Colombia, as thousands flee a reconfigured armed conflict that has intensified since the landmark 2016 peace deal that was lauded for bringing an end to Colombia’s 50-year war.

Jozef Merkx, representative in Colombia for the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, explained how the power vacuum left in rural areas by the demobilisation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has seen other armed groups battling for a greater share of the lucrative drug and coca-growing trade. They include the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), and the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

“We are still seeing a number of people fleeing [rural] areas, due to the violence there, especially in areas such as Chocó, Cauca, and Arauca, where groups are fighting for control,” Merkx said.

Read more → In Colombia’s Tumaco, the war isn’t over, it’s just beginning

Colombia has the largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world — almost 7.7 million people, according to 2018 estimates by UNHCR.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) states that about 145,000 new displacements associated with conflict and violence were reported across the country in 2018. And some 40,000 people were newly displaced in the first quarter of 2019 alone.

‘The population is exploding’

Those who flee violence in rural coca-producing regions often head for Bogotá and end up in slums like Soacha Alta.

“Rents are minimal, and it is easier to set up camp there than to try and find proper accommodation [in the city],” Merkx said.

Soacha Alta is classified by the government as an illegal settlement. As Merkx explained, that means there is next-to-no infrastructure — no water mains, no sewers, and only ad hoc electricity siphoned off the grid. Makeshift housing, built without government approval and covered in tarpaulins, sits alongside unpaved streets.

UNHCR works in specific neighbourhoods in Soacha Alta, such as Altos de Cazucá and Altos de la Florida, but could give no official population figure for the settlement as a whole or for displaced people who have fled here since the 2016 peace agreement.

Susana Arévalo, the 30-year-old founder of Fundación Las Pulgas, the only other NGO aside from the UN working in Soacha Alta, estimates that a total of 4,000 families live here now.

“Around 25 to 30 families are arriving every week,” said Arévalo, who lives in Bogotá and has been volunteering here for more than seven years.

People arrive in Soacha Alta with as many as three generations in tow. Entire families survive on less than $100 a month, often sleeping together on the same mattress, said Arévalo.

She was unable to provide figures from before the post-2016 influx, but said: “The population is exploding and the government is turning a blind eye.”

A 2017 IDMC assessment says that 80 percent of displaced people in Colombia live below the poverty line, with one in three living in extreme poverty and in surroundings where “levels of crime and violence are high”.

In Soacha Alta, the post-2016 displaced are considered the most vulnerable. “The new IDPs aren’t settled — they don’t have close community networks; they don’t have resources; they are the ones who are more vulnerable [to drug trafficking],” said Merkx. “They’ve had to leave everything behind and they arrive with nothing.”

Drugs to curb hunger

Maria is one of many mothers here who makes a four-hour round trip to Bogotá most days to find what menial work she can to support her family. “I cannot look after my children,” she said. “I have no choice.”

She often left her eldest child, a 13-year-old, in charge, spending days at work terrified for the safety of her children.

“There is nobody in this town to protect my children while I am at work. We have no water; it is hard to find food. The police will not even come here, it is so dangerous,” Maria said.