UN refugee agency opens new field office in Colombia
14 August -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has completed a year-long process of establishing field offices in Colombia's key displacement areas, a spokesman for the agency announced today.
On Friday, UNHCR opened its third field office in Putumayo, one of Colombia's major coca-producing regions where the country's long-running conflict has displaced numerous people. "Colombian officials acknowledge that an expected anti-drug offensive in the Putumayo region could lead to further displacements in the area," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.
The UN refugee agency estimates that there are more than 1.1 million internally displaced Colombians. "Nearly 600,000 Colombians are estimated to have been uprooted in the past two years alone, a worrisome trend that is continuing in places like Putumayo where profits from the drug trade are fuelling a bloody conflict involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary forces and government troops," Mr. Redmond observed.
UNHCR's activities in Colombia are aimed at helping the country to deal with its huge population of internally displaced. In addition to the Putumayo office, which is located near Colombia's border with Ecuador, the agency has a field office in Barrancabermeja near Venezuela, and in Apartadó near the Panamanian border.
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