Colombia's displaced caught in cross fire of war and racism

Cecilia Cortes survives in Nelson Mandela City after escaping Columbia's guerrilla war.

By Karl Penhaul
Special to CNN

CARTAGENA, Colombia (CNN) -- The last African slaves landed at Colombia's port of Cartagena 150 years ago. But long after abolition, their descendants are still not masters of their destiny.

More than 50,000 refugees, almost all of them black, have left behind plots of land in the interior of Colombia and are now squatting on the outskirts of the former slave port.

They call their shantytown Nelson Mandela City, after the South African statesman. The collection of shacks made from scraps of wood, tin and plastic is their only haven from Colombia's drawn-out war between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary squads and the army.

"The paramilitaries came, and we were afraid and we came here and left everything and our crops behind," said Cecilia Cortes, one of the shantytown residents who abandoned her village.

The refugee children are malnourished, and the only relief comes from a United Nations-aided soup kitchen. The shantytown has no running water.

The number of new internal refugees, or displaced people, in Colombia surged in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2000 as Colombia's war escalated. More than 90,000 peasants were uprooted during the first three months of 2001 from historical mining areas and other strategic tracts of land.

About 30 percent of the refugees are black or indigenous people although those groups make up 10 percent of the population overall, said Leila Lima, head of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Colombia.

Jobs are scarce. Desperate refugees are reduced to such unhealthy activities as picking through trash heaps to recycle glass bottles and cardboard in exchange for about $2 a day.

International aid agencies have helped build schools and organize community projects in Nelson Mandela City, but the shanty dwellers said that history and race work against them. Blacks have historically been among Colombia's poorest populations and have received little government assistance.

"They've denied opportunities to the black people," said community leader Miguel Lopez, "because black and poor people, when they're educated, are dangerous because they have that resentment that has been brewing since the time they were slaves."

While the refugees no longer have a war on their doorsteps, their battle for survival is no less desperate as they try to stave off starvation and disease on the fringes of Colombian society.

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