Thread: Colombians increasingly fleeing to Ecuador

Colombians increasingly fleeing to Ecuador

The higher volume of migration is largely driven by increased levels of drug-fueled violence in Colombia. Ecuador has borne most of the costs of absorbing the refugees.

By Chris Kraul
February 12, 2010 | 6:00 p.m.

Reporting from San Gabriel, Ecuador - For Mari, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two small children, the choice was life or death: either flee to neighboring Ecuador or be killed by paramilitaries who were trying to extort $3,000 from her and her husband.

So in October, she and her family fled their small farm in southern Colombia and became part of a rising tide of refugees streaming into Ecuador. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last month that the number of Colombian refugees tripled in the last six months of 2009, compared with the same period the previous year.

More than 80,000 Colombians are registered refugees in Ecuador and as many as 200,000 more are thought to be undocumented.

The higher volume of people fleeing Colombia is largely due to increased levels of drug-fueled violence in the border state of Narino. Rival guerrilla, paramilitary and narco gangs are vying for control of the state's cocaine traffic as well as cultivation and processing of coca, whose leaves are used to produce the drug.

Caught in the middle are poor rural residents such as Mari and her family, from the town of Catambuco near Pasto, Narino's capital. Armed groups often force rural people to join their ranks, pay huge "vaccinations," as extortion payments are called, or flee.

"There is no end to the violence. We thought it was better to come here, where it is peaceful, to try to start a new life," said Mari, who would not give her last name for fear of reprisal.

Even before the recent uptick in the number of migrants, the United Nations had declared the Ecuadorean-Colombian border region to be the Western Hemisphere's leading focal point of displaced people. The Colombian government and international aid groups estimated that before the increase in 2009, roughly 15,000 citizens were immigrating to Ecuador each year to escape an armed conflict that is now in its fifth decade.

The issue of refugees is a source of strain in binational relations, with Ecuador saying Colombia makes too little effort to stem the flow and accepts little responsibility for the cost of humanitarian aid. Colombia has accused Ecuador of allowing rebel groups to find a haven in its territory.

In November, the two nations restored diplomatic ties cut since the Colombian military's March 2008 incursion into Ecuador to kill rebel leader Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Mari was interviewed in San Gabriel, a hilly dairy town 25 miles south of the border, the day after she and her family were given special one-year refugee visas by one of Ecuador's special mobile refugee evaluation teams.

She received the visa, which entitles her family to education, healthcare and short-term food and housing aid, after undergoing an all-day screening process in the town's sports arena.

Not all families receive visas, as many cannot provide convincing accounts of physical danger. About 15% are denied refugee status and asked -- but not forced -- to return to Colombia.

The refugee registration and support program is supported by the U.N. and the U.S. State Department. But the cost of absorbing the Colombians and providing services, which totaled $40 million last year, is borne mostly by the Ecuadorean government.

That Colombia has offered to shoulder only $500,000 of that nettles Ecuador, said a Foreign Ministry official participating in the registration, who did not want his name used because he was not authorized to speak for the government.

Lorena Escudero, Ecuador's migration minister, said her government wished that Colombia would take a "more constructive role" in dealing with the flood of people. "I'm talking not only about financial support for its citizens who are here but taking on more humanitarian policies to counteract the flow," Escudero said in a telephone interview.

In their first nine months, the mobile refugee screening teams issued 25,000 refugee visas; they plan to issue 50,000 more this year.

The immigrants this year include entire indigenous communities, including Awa Indians, who last year were twice victims of mass killings in remote areas of Narino state by armed groups that they refused to help or join.

Officials in Ecuador say they hope to help refugees integrate more easily. Ecuadorean officials also consider Colombian refugees an important resource in a country where the labor force has been decimated by mass migration to Europe and the United States.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and- ... 3083.story

Officials in Ecuador say they hope to help refugees integrate more easily. Ecuadorean officials also consider Colombian refugees an important resource in a country where the labor force has been decimated by mass migration to Europe and the United States.

Huh? We always hear that migrants who come to the U.S. from Central and South America are doing so because they are desperate for jobs. They are just trying to feed their families, or send remittances home, blah, blah, blah. Apparently thats NOT always the case -- in Ecuador they are desperate for workers, "where the labor force has been decimated because of mass migration to Europe and the U.S". Hmmm..... So I wonder why they're coming here then? Rhetorical question - I know why.