A family, with minors, was forced to leave their property; among the perpetrators would be Jesús Alfonso Berrío alias ‘Berrío’ and member of the criminal organization of the late Vicente Castaño and the convicted drug trafficker Felipe Vallejo Vélez who led the current dispossession, entering the company of vehicles of the National Police of Colombia.
In the midst of an illegal operation, in which presumed members of the public force and the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation also participated, several peasants were reportedly detained irregularly, together with minors and an elderly person, to deprive them of their places of residence and work in order to appropriate the property that has had different litigations and protections in favor of the true owner, Mr. Sánchez Ángel.
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The facts They were presented in the municipality of La Ponedera, Atlántico and it is expected that they will be investigated by the competent entities. The victims, according to their complaints, had already suffered a similar episode in 2005 with paramilitaries who, in the past, abruptly entered their properties and took possession of them, as is happening now.
The affected they had already been recognized as victims by the Colombian State, through the Land Restitution Agencywho returned the properties that today would once again be illegally seized.
“These groups stripped us of land that had always belonged to my grandfather. Thanks to the Land Restitution program, we once again obtained these properties that had been violently taken from us. Today again some people violently entered our properties and we are being threatened and violated by these criminal groups.”denounced Alejandra Barón Sánchez, a victim of land dispossession.
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Faced with these serious complaints, part of the family, which is in exile in the United States, asks the authorities to take action on the matter and investigate which would be a dispossession of land and a clear violation of human rights.
Forced displacement in Colombia had its highest figure in a decade in 2022
Colombia suffered up to 339,000 new forced movements due to armed violence in 2022, the highest figure in a decade, partly due to the increase in attacks by non-state armed groups, according to an annual report on internally displaced persons in the world released today.
According to the study of NGO Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), The areas most affected by these forced displacements were the southwestern departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Putumayo and Nariño.
However, the phenomenon also affected other subdivisions of the country, such as Antioquia, Chocó, Córdoba, Caquetá, Cesar and Magdalena.
The report underscores that a large number of the incidents occurred in the first half of the year, and that in many cases non-state armed groups focused their attacks and threats against social and community leaders, human rights and environmental defenders, forcing them to flee .
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After these movements the total number of internally displaced persons in Colombia stood at 4.8 million at the end of 2022a slight decrease compared to the 5.2 million registered in 2021, according to the report.
The majority of these internally displaced persons (4.76 million) are far from home because of conflict and violence, while 41,000 have been victims of natural disasters, according to the global study.
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Colombia concentrates 71% of all internally displaced persons in the Americasalthough the study qualifies that it is one of the countries in the world with the most advanced and complete records on this phenomenon, which could explain why its figures are much higher than other countries on the continent affected by similar levels of violence and crises.
In the country, there were also 281,000 movements of internally displaced people last year related to natural disasters, especially people evacuated by floods in the northern departments of Sucre and Bolívar.