According to the Victims Unique Register, at least 8 million Colombians have been affected by the violence along this more than a half-century armed conflict. From them, more than 600.000 have received a compensation from the Victims Unit, depending on the damaged suffered.

Leaders of the victims of Colombian armed conflict reacted this Friday to the Nobel Peace Prize given to the president Juan Manuel Santos, and considered it an award to their sacrifice and research for peace.

“For us, this prize is very important because besides the acknowledgement of our fight, it also means a big support from the international community”, said Anaidalyt Delgado, coordinator of the Victims Table in Medellin.

For this nurse that had to leave the Bajo Cauca Antioqueño, where she lived, because the FARC guerilla obliged her to, to receive this prize is remarkable.

For Edilia Mendoza, displaced from the Casanare department and leader from the National Asociation of Peasant Users (ANUC, in Spanish), “thousands of organizations and the National Movement of Human Rights, have worked along many years for this moment. Is an award that all Colombians deserve”.

This affected by the armed conflict, that have suffered 17 attacks, added: “They can’t commit mistakes by backing a process that is not shielded. This is a very important step”.

By explaining their decision in Oslo (Norway), representatives of the Nobel Foundation argued that this prize represents “a tribute to the Colombians that having suffered big difficulties and abuses, have not lost the hope of a just peace”.

Furthermore, an homage “to the leaders of the “countless victims of the war”, they assured.

According to the Victims Unique Register, at least 8 million Colombians have been affected by violence during the armed conflict. From them, more than 600.000 have received a compensation from the Victims Unit, because of the harm suffered.

 “More united”

The Nobel Peace Prize “cheers us up because now we need to unite more ourselves”, said Victor Hernandez, whose father died because of the guerilla in Caqueta department. The current coordinator of the Victims Participation Table, added in Medellin: “This make us the center of this peace process and should serve to the objective of living in a country without conflict and in constant reconciliation, independently of who voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (in the plebiscite of last 2 October)”.

In coincidence with the Nobel piece of news, this Friday, in the second city of Colombia, victims have demonstrated for a negociated solution of the armed conflict.

Since the Bolivar department, Misael Pallares, peasant leader that won the National Peace Prize, complementes: “It is a key moment for our country, beacuse of all the efforts to get to peace. I feel represented in the award”.