Caine trail

aiming their land and people who ave offered to substitute coca for ther crops like coffee and cocoa nder a government scheme. People hose land was stolen and who have emanded it be returned have also een targeted. Land is at the heart of the armed conflict here. The paramilitaries and ELN buy arms and ammunition from coca leaves, illegal mining and palm-oil plantations.”

In Nueva Esperanza back down the river villagers spoke of an army helicopter bomb attack as recently as December. They had to scramble for shelter in the dead of night as soldiers strafed their homes to flush ELN rebels from a hideout in the forest.

We are taken down a track on motorbikes to be shown fragments of the bombs that were dropped and bullet casings from the raid.

Erasmus Ortiz-sierra, 74, tells me they are “always under threat”. “We have had to learn to protect ourselves,” says Erasmus, who was forced here in the late 1990s after FARC militia took his home village. “It is still bad today. Where we have narco-traffickers

we have armed groups. As long as we have coca crops on our territory, we are affected. They are fighting for rent of the land.”

Mum-of-four Elvia Flores chips in: “The paramilitaries are a terrible worry. They have made us all anxious. We are on the front line.

“That raid was so terrifying, so loud, the houses were shaking. The children were screaming, shouting for help.”

Her children stop playing, becoming quiet as their mother talks.

For them, cocaine is not a harmless recreational drug, but the fuel bringing violence into their lives.

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