Aohell

Darfur in South America

The worst refugee crisis outside of Africa is Colombia, where forty years of constant civil war and narcotrafficking has displaced millions of people from the interior to coastal towns. Indegenous people and Afro-Colombians, the people on the lowest end of the social ladder, are the ones hardest hit, of course. More than 3 million of them are looking for new homes in crowded, unfriendly cities.

The refugees take fire from police, paramilitaries, and leftist rebels, either as targets of violence or as bystanders in the general melee that passes for Colombia. In an economy where the narcotics trade is king, they have no other option but to bow down and accept their fate. Colombia's got the world's highest murder rate with many of the fallen drawn from poor people who tried to stand up to the drug dealers.

To help alleviate the situation, the Colombian government is paying off the paramilitaries and leftists with massive benefits packages. Most of these retired soldiers become full-time civilian drug dealers. The poor of Colombia wonder how in the world this is supposed to benefit them.