Colombia: Thousands in need of urgent protection: Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities

7,000 persons from Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Bojayá, Chocó (western Colombia) face live-threathening and forced displacement risk as the guerrilla National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and the paramilitary group Gaitanistas Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia) are increasing hostilities in their territory. The communities of Unión Baquiaza, Union Cuití, Carrillo, Playita, Mesopotamia and Egoróquera are at risk. In Chocó several assassinations of community leaders recently occurred, and communities are constantly under threats from armed groups without any preventive action from national authorities.

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