UN REFUGEE AGENCY HELPS NEW WAVE OF COLOMBIANS FLEEING TO ECUADOR

UN REFUGEE AGENCY HELPS NEW WAVE OF COLOMBIANS FLEEING TO ECUADOR
New York, Aug 30 2007 11:00AM
The United Nations refugee agency is working with its partners to help more than 1,500 Colombians who have fled an outbreak of violence in their home areas and sought safety in Ecuador over the past week – the latest influx in a years-long exodus that has sent some 250,000 Colombians fleeing to their southern neighbour.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has mobilized resources on both sides of the border to address the crisis, with a team visiting the Colombian coastal town of Tumaco over the weekend to try and learn more about the current flight.

They found a combination of factors pushing people to leave, including fear of violence erupting between the armed forces and irregular armed groups in a country which has seen some 3 million people uprooted by more than 40 years of fighting between the Government, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and criminal gangs.

People also indicated they feared that a state campaign to eradicate illegal coca crops could affect them adversely.

The latest refugees have turned up in the coastal Ecuadorean town of San Lorenzo, where they are being registered and housed in eight schools, a church and a municipal centre. About 40 per cent of the new arrivals are children. They have been given food and medicine as well as non-food items such as mattresses and blankets. To ease pressure on the shelters in San Lorenzo, 170 of them were moved on Monday to the inland city of Ibarra.

The municipal authorities of San Lorenzo are providing all the resources available to them. Civil Defence forces are also involved, while extra medics have arrived in the town and have been providing free medical attention to the Colombians, including 14 people who were injured in a road accident on their way to the town.
2007-08-30 00:00:00.000

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