Ecuador holds big drive to register Colombian refugees

[EFerrari]

By Irene Caselli
Ibarra, Ecuador



It is the start of an important day for 100 Colombian refugees and their families here in Ibarra, an Ecuadorean city half-way between the capital city, Quito, and the Colombian border.

As they enter the Luis Leoro Franco sports hall, they know that by the end of the day they will find out if they can stay in the country with a refugee visa.

It is extraordinarily quiet, despite the presence of many children, and the tension is high. As they wait to be interviewed, most do not want to share their stories. Eventually one woman smiles and agrees to go to a corner to talk.

Paulina, 33, fled Colombia last July, soon after her husband was killed outside her home in the Valle del Cauca region, some 600km (460 miles) north of Ibarra.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8593338.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Excellent article. Only one I've seen like this. Ecuador is doing a great service

in trying so hard to find a way to help so many non-Ecuadorians who are there because of what the Colombian government and its paras have done to them.

So sad the land they had to leave gets taken by the paras and ends up in the hands of the government or wealthy landowners, often selling it to the biofuel industry or corporations who mine it, or grow other crops on it. it wasn't that long ago President Alvaro Uribe's cousin was discovered to have made secret deals with paras to get his puffy little hands on property they had taken from farmers, to add to his own holdings.

It will take forever to clean up Colombia, but Ecuador sure shines brightly now! More power to them.

Thanks for posting the BBC information.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Recommending, #1.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: