The city of Bogotá has received more than 34 displaced families since January 2025, when the social and armed conflict in Catatumbo increased its intensity, due to the confrontation of the National Liberation Army against the 33 gang and the army of the Colombian oligarchy. Around this time, the municipal administration moved the families to a property in the village of Las Pavitas, in the municipality of Puerto de Boyacá, now they are adrift in the city of Bogotá, not knowing what to do, after the state intended their departure from the territory and now refuses to respond to their situation.
Relying on the municipal administration and the government, some families from Catatumbo left the region believing that they would be guaranteed a relocation in dignified conditions in the country’s capital. This at the same time that they had agreed with the State institutions, that the Single Registry of Victims would be carried out, a historical claim of the most vulnerable populations in Colombia, as well as a definitive relocation would be made in the medium term thanks to a land restitution process, which would be carried out by the National Land Agency (ANT).
Almost 5 months after the displacement of these families and the agreements reached with the government and the municipal administration, the truth is that nothing has been fulfilled and the families of Catatumbo continue to be the main victims, now abandoned to their fate far from their territories of origin, seeing their right to housing, to peace, to the development of their communities and even the right to life violated. In the ELN we know well that all this military and media war in Catatumbo is part of the counterinsurgency plan of the state and the multinationals to appropriate this territory, so that there is no people who oppose the extraction and theft of our natural resources. We insist that militarization is not a political and viable solution to resolve this social and armed conflict that has been going on for decades, as well as that returning home means fighting for territory and a dignified life.
By: Elizabeth García, correspondent for Antorcha Estéreo.