Medellin landlords and gangs skyrocket forced displacement

[Judi Lynn]

by Adriaan Alsema April 15, 2021

Medellin landlords using gangs to evict tenants more than doubled forced displacement in Colombia’s second largest city, according to the local ombudsman.

Medellin Ombudsman William Vivas said Wednesday that 530 people were forcibly displaced in the first two months of the year.

This is more than twice as much as the 245 people were were forcibly displaced from their neighborhoods in the same period last year, according to the human rights official.

. . .

These districts have historically been all but abandoned by the police and effectively controlled by gangs, of which many belong to local crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/medellin-landlords-and-gangs-skyrocket-forced-displacement/

[EX500rider]

1. Surprised it's not more in a city of 2.5 million.

That's a shot of the hill side barrios, the main city is much prettier.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Crime in Colombia - Wikipedia

Colombia, like many Latin American nations, evolved as a highly segregated society. The Colombian conflict began in the mid-1960s and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between Colombian governments, paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and left-wing guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Army_(Colombia) (ELN), fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Two of the most important international actors that have contributed to the Colombian conflict are multinational companies and the United States.[1][2][3]

Elements of all the armed groups have been involved in drug trafficking. In a country where the presence of the state has always been weak, the result has been a grinding war on multiple fronts, with the civilian population caught in the crossfire and often deliberately targeted for "collaborating". Human rights advocates blame paramilitaries for massacres, "disappearances", and cases of torture and forced displacement. Rebel groups are behind assassinations, kidnapping and extortion.[4]

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Medellín was once known as the most violent city in the world,[40][41] a result of an urban war set off by the drug cartels at the end of the 1980s. As the home of the Medellín Cartel funded by Pablo Escobar, the city was victim of the terror caused by the war between the organization headed by Escobar, and competing organizations such as "El Cartel del Valle". However, after the death of Escobar, crime rates in the city began to decrease.[42]

Throughout the rest of the 1990s crime rates remained relatively high, although gradually declining from the worst years. In October 2002, President Álvaro Uribe ordered the military to carry out "Operation Orion," whose objective was to disband the urban militias of the FARC and the AUC.[42] Between 2003 and 2006 the demobilization of the remaining urban militias of the AUC was completed, with more than 3,000 armed men giving up their weapons.[43]

Nonetheless after the disbanding of the main paramilitary groups, many members of such organizations have been known to have reorganized into criminal bands known commonly as Aguilas Negras. These groups have gained notoriety in Medellín for calling upon curfews for the underage population, and have been known to distribute fliers announcing the social cleansing of prostitutes, drug addicts, and alcoholics.[44] The extradition of paramilitary leader Don Berna appears to have sparked a crime wave with a sharp increase in killings.[45]

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia