THE NEW HUMANITARIAN: Conflict, displacement fears rise in Colombia →

Erika Gonzalez recalled hundreds arriving by wooden canoes.

The elderly were shaking in fear as they disembarked their slender boats, having escaped the violence that has plagued villages in Colombia’s southwestern department of Nariño for decades. Many, including Gonzalez’s nephews, uncles, and aunts, were from her own village of Palambi, on the banks of the River Chagüi, near Tumaco.

Nury Cabezas shows cell phone photos of displaced people from communities on the River Chagüi arriving to Tumaco city by canoe. (Steven Grattan/TNH)