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June 05, 2009
The Refugee Camp in Front of the Mayor´s Office
One of the people who works on my floor - I know him only by his nickname 'el Negro' - just grabbed the phone next to me and took an urgent phone call. He urged the person on the other line to calm down and asked them if they knew where they were going.
He came back a few minutes later to take another strange phone call, and finally opened up to me about the situation. He took an urgent break from his usual work because he is trying to orient a young mother of two who came with her children more than six months ago from the southwestern city of Cali. Her family was under constant threat from armed militias in her home city, and she took off with her kids, leaving most of her family behind.
El Negro found her crying and begging downtown near the mayor´s office months ago. Nobody paid her any attention. He asked her about her situation, and since then he has been guiding her through her stay in Medellin. She shares a run down hotel room downtown with dozens of other displaced people from conflict-ridden areas of Colombia. The father of her children came a few days after she did and sells candy around Medellin, but they simply don´t have any money and my coworker has been supporting them for months.
El Negro just took me to the window and pointed to the 'hotel' where she lives, which is about four blocks from the mayor´s office. He explained that the hotel is full of displaced people. They support each other, but living in Medellin is difficult. Displaced people here often don´t know where to go for help or support, and when they find it, it is limited. Most of them are black or indigenous and face racial discrimination. The city already has a high unemployment rate, and it is difficult for displaced people to find employment. When they first come to unfamiliar cities like Medellin, they hover around it for months, homeless. Eventually, they might settle in slums in the city´s periphery and start a new life. The closest they come to having a decent job is as an informal street vendor or factory worker. They often don´t have formal identification, their homes are illegal squatter settlements, and what few possessions they had were mostly left behind as they rushed out of their hometowns to safety.
The gravity and maginitude Colombia´s displacement crisis is difficult to digest. In the past 25 years or so, over 4 million Colombians (1out of every 11) have left their homes due to violence. While Colombia has made significant gains in security since 2002, displacement due to conflict does not seem to have slowed down and some human rights organizations claim that it has even increased. The current administration´s relationship with human rights organizations is tense at best, and the displaced population does not seem to be one of the national government´s main priorities.
This is my first time staying in Medellin for more than a few days since the 1990´s, and the effects of displacement on the city are obvious. Its black and indigenous populations have visibly skyrocketed and the city itself has grown exponentially. Most of the growth is on the lush mountains surrounding Medellin, where displaced people and other migrants from the countryside have built their homes. Shantytowns that used to reach only the foothills now go all the way up to dangerous peaks. During my last visit to Moravia, I visited a part of the neighborhood called 'Chococito' after the Choco region of Colombia, a largely AfroColombian and indigenous region where violence has driven many people to cities like Cali and Medellin. Most residents there were displaced people, and conditions there were by far the worst that I saw in all of Moravia. Indeed, displacement is not only the main failure of Colombia´s recent security policy, but also one of its greatest social problems.
The state does not have the capacity - and some would say that it does not have enough of a commitment - to support Colombia´s displaced population. Since this woman has come from Cali, she has not managed to establish a new life. Her children are not receiving medical care or an education, although they do have electricity and running water. My coworker is trying to convince her to go back home to her family. After living here for months, neither she nor her husband have found formal work, and still partly depend on his small donations. Many people in her position unfortunately cannot count on the help of a local resident like my coworker and, while she seems to be considering returning to Cali, most displaced people cannot return home because of continued threats of violence and lack of resources.
Displacement definitely puts a lot of pressure on offices like the one where I am currently working. Every day, people here strive to meet the most basic needs of Medellin´s poorest people, but we are all aware that thousands of people with urgent needs migrate to the city every month. While we try to reverse three decades of violence, marginalization and social decay in Moravia, as we look at the mountains that surround the city we know that new Moravias are already forming there, and that perhaps the people who most need our help have not even come to Medellin yet.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 5, 2009 05:03 PM
