Attachments
RISK ANALYSIS AND SELECTION OF EARLY ACTIONS
Priority threat and its historical impact.
Colombia is one of the countries in the world with the highest number of internally displaced persons due to the armed conflict (which has been going on for more than 60 years), being a phenomenon of long duration and with a wide impact on the population, which has acquired the dimension of a humanitarian catastrophe during critical periods. Although 15 victimizing events1, are recognized in the Colombian armed conflict, this Early Action Protocol (EAP) has focused on forced displacement because it is the victimizing event of greatest magnitude and generates numerous humanitarian impacts simultaneously.
Forced displacement due to armed conflict refers to the situation in which persons or groups of persons are forced or obliged to flee their homes or places of habitual residence, particularly as a result of an armed conflict that involves violent acts and fierce disputes between various armed actors seeking to gain control of strategic territories for the development of their actions. These disputes occur through combat, harassment and other armed operations that cause serious human rights violations as well as breaches of international humanitarian law.
Displacement is forced because people are obliged to leave their territory because their lives are at risk and because the impacts of armed combat or forms of confrontation affect their integrity (for example, through selective killings, threats, kidnappings, forced disappearances, installation of explosive devices and anti-personnel mines, sexual violence, recruitment of children and adolescents, among other victimizing events). The hostilities caused by the confrontations between armed groups not only put at risk the life, integrity and well-being of people, but also cause the rupture of the social fabric and threaten livelihoods and local development, since not only are people forced to abandon their homes and daily activities to save their lives and those of their families, but also social cohesion is broken, uprooting is generated, land is dispossessed and serious physical and psychological effects are caused due to fear, uncertainty and anxiety.
Forced displacement due to armed conflict is a different phenomenon from migration, since the latter refers to the voluntary mobilization of a person or groups of people who leave their territory for other places in search of better economic or social conditions and opportunities for access to goods and services, without a clear intension to return in most cases. People who are forcibly displaced because of the armed conflict yearn to return to their territories because there they have their places of residence, have established their livelihoods and wish to continue their projects there together with their families and their community.