The family that was displaced by violence from the urban area of Vistahermosa, Meta, is made up of a couple and their two children and was declared a victim of forced abandonment of their 158-square-meter property.
Consequently, the First Civil Court of the Specialized Circuit for Land Restitution of Villavicencio, ordered to compensate its members with a new house in the place they choose; while the woman who currently occupies the property was recognized as the second occupant and will continue to inhabit it.
In the year 2000, the spouses acquired the house lot to which they made some improvements. The head of the household was dedicated to hauling and transporting people to the villages, for which reason on some occasions he was forced to mobilize guerrillas, and in the end, after the arrival of the paramilitaries, caused him to be branded as a helper of the FARC-EP and ordered by alias “Rolando” to leave the municipality.
After fleeing to Villavicencio, to safeguard their lives and over time, the family turned to the Land Restitution Unit, an entity that brought their case to justice, achieving that its members were declared victims of displacement and forced abandonment of land and, at the same time, that compensation was ordered.
In this case, the members of the family that benefited from the sentence stated that they are not interested in returning, because they consider that their lives continue to be at risk and, furthermore, they feel that they have already lost their roots. Thus, the Unit will buy them a new property with similar characteristics to the one they had to abandon.
In addition, the ruling recognizes the status of second occupant of a female head of the household, who came to live with her children in the uninhabited property and later acquired it by letter of sale from the municipal mayor’s office. The judge considered that
It is about a vulnerable person who is also a victim of violence and therefore will continue to live there.
Source: Land Restitution Unit