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Keep it podcast5/1/2023 In Ecuador, illegal mining - much of it artisanal - started to pop up around 2017, according to officials, with thousands of people migrating from other parts of the country to participate in the gold rush. The National Liberation Army (ELN) - as well as dissident factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - have helped make the Colombian departments of Putumayo and Nariño some of the country’s leading areas for coca cultivation, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Ombudsmen from both countries urged Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior and Ecuador’s Ministry of Women and Human Rights - as well as both foreign ministries - to do more to ensure the safety of Indigenous people in the area, including making use of the new alert system. The activities have contributed to what the UN called “physical and cultural extermination” of the Awá. Organized crime has run rampant along the Colombian-Ecuador border for years, with a weak or non-existent government presence making it easy for guerrilla and drug trafficking groups to move back and forth across the border as they cultivate coca and mine gold illegally. ( Photo courtesy of Colombian Armed Forces) Deforestation in Putumayo during a military operation in November 2022. Since last August, more than 10,000 of them have been forcibly displaced or suffered threats, intimidation, torture or forced recruitment, according to the Human Rights Observatory of the Awá People’s Indigenous Unit (Unipa). There are around 29,000 Awá in the area, according to the Colombian Ombudsman office. “We’re hoping to alert the Colombian and Ecuadorian state about this string of rights violations so they’ll take the necessary and urgent measures, and prevent the continuing violation of human rights happening on both sides of the border,” Ecuador Ombudsman César Córdova Valverde said at a press conference in Bogotá. The two countries announced a system designed to improve information-sharing and make alerts about risks of violence against residents who live near the border, many of whom are Awá Indigenous people. But they’ve struggled to protect their ancestral land.Ĭolombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups. Many Awá live in extremely biodiverse areas that serve as corridors to other parts of the Amazon.Since last August, thousands of Awá have been forcibly displaced or suffered threats, intimidation, torture or forced recruitment by organized crime groups participating in drug trafficking and illegal mining.Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a system designed to alert about risks of violence against residents who live near the border, many of whom are Awá Indigenous people.
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