Colombia grapples with applying refugee aid: UN

Bogota, Mar 17: Colombia struggles to properly assist thousands of people forced from their homes by conflict despite heavy government spending, strong laws and a decline in the flow of refugees, the United Nations said.

Colombia's decades-long war has driven more than 3 million people from their homes and hundreds of thousands have left the country in what the UN High Commission for Refugees calls one of the worst refugee situations outside of Sudan.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres recognised Colombia had well-established legislation and financing to provide aid to the displaced, but said its application of the laws and assistance often fell short.

''The major concern we have is that the gap between legislation ... and the reality is very difficult to overcome,'' Guterres told reporters yesterday.

''It is vital for Colombia to guarantee the concrete application of rights that are written into the law, but the practical circumstances make it very hard,'' he said.

Guterres spoke a day after a visit to a community in Choco, a poor jungle region rich in timber but one of the worst affected by the four-decade-old conflict involving leftist rebels, illegal paramilitaries and government forces.

Bebedo, an isolated Afro-Colombian village on the San Juan river in Choco, now has a police command in sandbagged bunkers sitting up on hillsides. But armed groups are still active in the area.

Violence from the guerrilla war has dropped since President Alvaro Uribe came to office promising to crush the rebels and send troops out to areas once controlled by illegal armed groups, who use the cocaine trade to finance their operations.

But thousands are still forced from their homes each year by the conflict. Colombia estimates around 170,000 people were forced to move by fighting or threats last year.

Reuters