Scared jungle children starve in Colombia’s ‘peace’

PI DE PAT , Colombia: The cries of hungry babies pierce the quiet of dawn in the green jungles of northwestern Colombia.

For thousands of indigenous families displaced by war, recent peace efforts have brought no relief.

Sordid fighting over drugs and land continues. Terrified locals are starving to death.

“There is no food here,” says John Hamilton Sagugara, a school teacher in Tasi, one of a grouping of local indigenous communities.

“Many people have diarrhea, vomiting and fever.”

With the youngest of her seven children clinging to her breast, Mariluz Dari confirms it. Her baby has been sick for the past three weeks.

Naked children with bellies swollen by hunger roam the mud streets between the wooden houses.

Local authorities say two children died here last year from gastric and respiratory conditions caused by malnutrition.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel

They are seeking control of the drug-trafficking and that means they are constantly fighting for territory.

Peace Prize last year for reaching an accord with the leftist FARC rebels to end five decades of conflict.

His government has also launched peace talks with the country’s last remaining rebel group, the lef t ist Nat ional Liberation Army ( ELN).

But local officials here say that the ELN is still fighting against right-wing paramilitary groups — remnants of a long, many-sided conflict.

“There is a real ly strong presence of ELN here,” says Dayro Palacios, an administrator in Pie de Pato, municipal capital of the surrounding district.

“They are seeking control of the drug-trafficking and that means they are constantly fighting for territory.”

The violence forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes near the Upper Baudo river in 2014 and resettled in other nearby communities.

One of them, Tasi community leader Jeison Mecha of the indigenous Embera people, says he eats once a day on average: “nothing but bananas.”

Despite the peace efforts, “we are still suffering,” he says in broken Spanish.

The locals used to grow corn, plantains and rice. They used to rear pigs and hens. They have had to abandon it all for the jungle.

“We ran in fear,” says Sagugara, the schoolteacher, his golden tooth glinting in the midday sun.

Upriver in the village of Puesto Indio, resettled families live crammed in overcrowded huts perched on piles.

On January 9, armed guerrillas burst into a meeting of local leaders and threatened to kill them.

“They accused us of c ol l abou r at i ng w it h t he paramilitaries,” said one leader, who has not been named to protect him from reprisals. — AFP

Dayro Palacios, Pie de Pato administrator