UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- The U.N. refugee agency is appealing for $14 million to aid hundreds of thousands of displaced Colombians, a result of decades of armed conflict.
"It is likely that the displaced population will continue to increase in 2007, with indigenous people and Afro-Colombian groups under the biggest threat," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Director for the Americas Philippe Lavanchy said Tuesday.
Approximately 3 million people have been uprooted in more than four decades of fighting between the government and both leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries. Colombia's internally displaced people make up 8 percent of the country's total population, and over 40,000 people were killed in the last 16 years.
In some parts of Columbia, the fighting makes it difficult for humanitarian groups to reach affected communities. The presence of armed groups has reportedly increased in border areas, said UNHCR.
The agency called for international attention to the plight of those caught up in fighting or forced to flee, cautioning that some indigenous communities -- displaced from land that they are bound by their traditions and culture -- are in jeopardy of disappearing altogether.
The recruitment of children is also a grave concern. "In Colombia, human rights violations, including extra-judicial killings and disappearances, are common. Illegal armed groups recruit children, often forcibly, in many areas of the country," said Lavanchy.
