The efforts that the Government has been making to protect the civilian and refugee population in Arauca and Vichada Until now, they have been poor and insufficient, and a declaration of ‘public calamity’ is necessary to deal with the crisis.
This was said this morning during a press event by HRW officials on the sidelines of the launch of a report on the violence that has been recorded on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, and that, according to the NGO, has been triggered since the beginning of the year.
(Read more: Venezuelan security forces are accomplices of the Eln, HRW denounces)
The report, based on field research and interviews with over 100 people, documents the abuses that both the FARC dissidents and the Eln have been committing in their dispute for territorial control in this border zone. Likewise, the participation in the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces that, according to HRW, is cooperating with the Eln.
“The humanitarian situation that more than 7,000 people are experiencing in these departments, including internally displaced persons and Venezuelan refugees, is desperate. Action is urgently needed.”said Juan Pappier, one of the report’s authors.
According to HRW, despite the efforts of international humanitarian agencies, hundreds of displaced people do not have sufficient access to food, drinking water and health services, especially in Vichada.
“Many indigenous people displaced to Vichada from Venezuela live on the banks of the Meta River in makeshift shelters. In Arauca and Vichada Armed groups have threatened some displaced people, and humanitarian agencies say displaced children are at risk of recruitment by armed groups.”
According to this organization, Although the Colombian authorities have tried to diminish the power of the armed groups in Arauca, Military operations have not sufficiently protected the population, nor have sufficient resources been devoted to addressing the crisis.
“Colombian authorities must urgently assess the humanitarian needs of those who fled Apure, as well as create and implement a humanitarian response plan to assist that population. In Vichada, they should consider decreeing a “state of public calamity,” which under Colombian law would allow the national government to allocate more resources to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced people. Colombian authorities should also guarantee access to legal status in Colombia for Venezuelans forced to flee Apure,” HRW said.
For years we have been receiving evidence and testimonies of the tolerance of the Armed Forces with criminal groups in Apure and border areas. But here the evidence goes further.
In the report, HRW says that there have been reports at least 103 homicides in the area between January and February of this year“by far the highest number of murders in the first two months of the year in Arauca since 2010.”
In addition, they affirm, since the clashes between the Eln and the Joint Command of the East (FARC dissidents) began, at least 3,860 people
“We have been receiving evidence and testimonies for years of the tolerance of the Armed Forces with criminal groups in Apure and border areas. But here the evidence goes further. It is not only tolerance but also joint operations in which the ELN does the dirty work of commit the outrages,” said Pappier.
According to this researcher, “we are seeing that the security forces and the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office report arrests and blows against the guerrillas, but exclusively against dissidents, which strongly suggests that they are working together to remove this group from the area with the aim of seizing control in the area and the illicit economies of drug trafficking, smuggling and gold trafficking.”
In the report, the NGO asks the UN Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela delve into the allegations of complicity by the Venezuelan security forces in the abuses committed by armed groups in Apure, including the Eln and the FARC dissident groups as part of the mission’s mandate to investigate serious human rights violations committed in the country since 2014.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
Correspondent of THE TIME
Washington
On Twitter @sergom68
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