CARTAGENA, Colombia -- Every day, around 860 people are internally displaced in Colombia. In the last 10 months, over 11,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, according to The Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (Codhes), a Colombian NGO that monitors displacement. There are glaring discrepancies between government and NGO displacement figures. But with an estimated 2 to 3.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), Colombia is home to the highest number of IDPs in the western hemisphere and has the second largest displaced population in the world, after Sudan. The crisis is a forgotten emergency that receives scant media attention both inside and outside of Colombia. The country's displacement crisis is getting worse. Since 2002, the number of IDPs in Colombia has increased by around 48 percent, according to Codhes.
Colombia Faces Worsening Internally Displaced Persons Crisis
