According to Colombian immigration authorities, illegal groups present in the border area take advantage of the vulnerability of minors to recruit them.
The immigration authorities of the Colombian department of Norte de Santander denounced this Wednesday that they are “certain” that illegal groups that commit crimes on the border with Venezuela are recruiting migrant minors to use them in coca crops and laboratories.
The secretary of borders and migratory affairs of the Norte de Santander governorate, Víctor Bautista, who participates in the International Meeting of Ombudsmen, told journalists that although “There is no consolidated number (on how many minors have been recruited in the troubled region of Catatumbo), the number is increasing and that worries”.
“There are the ELN, some dissidents from the FARC, the Rastrojos, some called Gaitanistas and other illegal groups that are present in the border area and that take advantage of the vulnerability of minors to recruit and to deal with more complex issues such as exploitation. sexual intercourse of minors, “he added.
Assured that “45% of the migratory flow from Venezuela is under 14 years of age” and that currently “an average of 200 daily migrants are entering the border area of Norte de Santander.”
Until today, a little more than 5.66 million people from Venezuela have crossed through Colombia in transit to other countries and 1.74 million of those Venezuelans have remained in the country; 759,584 are regularized and 983,343 are in an irregular situation.
Global migration figures
For his part, the Colombian ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, explained that according to figures from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), during 2020 “more than 82.4 million people around the world they have been forced to flee their homes, and among them are 26.4 million refugees. “
Camargo assured that “the other emergency in Latin America is the passage of transcontinental and Caribbean migrants from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America seeking to reach the northern countries of the hemisphere.”
“It has been documented that approximately 95,000 migrants have crossed the border between Colombia and Panama so far this year,” he added.
He explained that in many cases they are people persecuted for their race, sexual orientation and gender identity, religion, nationality, belonging to a social group or because of their political opinions, or also, due to poverty, the climate or the same pandemic of coronavirus.
Actions and lack of solidarity
The senior protection officer of UNHCR’s Americas office, José Sieber, also said that “the continent is in motion” due to the flow of “people with different profiles who have decided to migrate for different reasons and with different objectives; some leave in search of better economic conditions, but there are others that also leave due to expulsion phenomena “.
“We believe that the migrants who are today in Necoclí (a Caribbean town in Colombia en route to Panama) are people who had already found a certain stability for years, but who still decide once again to embark on new routes, we are talking about the people Haitians who lived a long time in Brazil, in Chile, “he said.
The country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Dominika Arseniuk, stated that they do what they can to help migrants and refugees, and that they are “making an effort where possible, but unfortunately in terms of financial resources today in day worldwide we lack solidarity “.
The meeting, which is attended by more than 20 ombudsmen, directors of the continent’s national human rights institutions and guests from Europe, Africa and Asia, will conclude tomorrow with a joint statement and the intervention of the President of Colombia, Iván Duque. (I)
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