Internally displaced people (IDPs) are those that have been forced to leave their homes but have not left their country. Colombia’s armed conflict left 5.6 million people internally displaced because of threats and violence from armed groups and narco-trafficking gangs in the places they live, which would include the forced recruitment into their ranks. Some people had to move more than once because the new places they settled in also became unsafe.

Informal Settlements

Many IDPs reside in informal settlements, which are groups of housing that have no legal claim to the land they occupy and therefore have little or no governmental presence. Many millions of people live in informal settlements across the world.

Altos de Florida is an informal settlement on the outskirts of Bogotá and started when internally displaced families spontaneously settled there in the 1990s with others following in the months and years that followed. Andrea lives in Altos de Florida, a neighbourhood just outside of the capital and tells the story of her forced displacement. To listen, click here.

“I was displaced from Putumayo to Bogotá ten years ago. The change from living in the countryside to the city was very hard. I cried every day. Living on a farm is a very different feeling to the feeling of confinement you get in a city. I lived in many neighbourhoods and in the end I bought a plot in Altos de la Florida”.

ACTIVITY

Watch this video from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and list the similarities and differences between a refugee and an IDP.

ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA CONTENTS:

• Timeline

• Key Players

• A Path to Peace

• Commemoration and Legacy

• Living Through Conflict

• Experience of Children

• Artistic Responses

• References

OTHER CONFLICTS:

• Punic Wars

• Battle of Hastings

• First World War

• Irish War of Independence

• Second World War

• Partition of British India

• Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall