Massive displacement in the Sierra Nevada due to clashes between armed groups

The report from the authorities of the municipality of Ciénaga (Magdalena), which states that nearly 200 peasants in the La Secreta village, had to flee their homes due to constant clashes between illegal armed structures operating the Sierra Nevada, is worrying.

Norma Vera, a human rights defender, commented on what happened in Santa Marta: “Two days ago the El Golfo Clan and the self-defence groups are facing each other in a high-intensity conflict over the control of the Sierra Nevada, drug trafficking routes, extortion of coffee growers, paramilitary and micro-trafficking and recruitment.”

On this situation, the mayor of Cienaga, Magdalena, Luis Tete Samper, said:

For his part, the top official of Zona Bananera, Guilmer Galindo, said that two deaths were reported as a result of the clashes: “These are Franklin Caballero and the young Victor Mojica, who died in these clashes and that they have nothing to do with these groups outside the law.”

Another of the human rights defenders who spoke was Lerber Dimas, who mentioned on Blu Radio that, despite the accompaniment provided by the authorities, anxiety and anxiety still abound in the municipality: “Although the Army was present, the situation in the area is one of anxiety. A scenario that we have warned about the reality that exists in the Sierra Nevada and the truth is that paramilitarism is gaining more and more ground.”

In the rural area of the municipality of Ciénaga (Magdalena), there are warnings about the fighting that the self-described Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, better known as the Gulf Clan, and the Conquistadora Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra or Los Pachenca, which have been fighting over the territory since the beginning of Holy Week to continue to commit crimes with drug trafficking.

The village of La Secreta is the most affected, they reported in the Barranquilla newspaper El Heraldo, where hostilities between the two drug trafficking groups have intensified, as a result of which several families have abandoned their homes and moved to the urban areas of the town, and the neighboring municipality of Zona Bananera, as well as as well as the cities of Santa Marta and Barranquilla.

Meanwhile, on the Caracol Radio station they consulted with an anthropologist Lerber Dimas, who is an analyst of the conflict in that region of the country, who explained that those affected do not recognize themselves as displaced persons, since they left their homes voluntarily to prevent any incident in the midst of the clashes among the criminal structures.

“They have not reported, nor will they. They do not understand that this is forced displacement. For them it is serious, but it does not imply that it is displacement because no one told them: -leave this area-, but they left of their own free will because they saw risk and this is displacement and even if they interpret it differently, crime is happening”, he explained on Caracol Radio.

He added that these two groups, which emerged from the extinct Auc, are regrouping which has led to the wave of violence in that area of the Colombian Caribbean. “No one is telling them to leave, but there are no guarantees of safety or peace of mind,” he said.

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