The right of return or relocation is one of the specific reparation measures for victims of armed conflict who have suffered a forced displacement. These constitute a gateway to the integral reparation process, which in this case will benefit 230 jiw families of Meta.

In the framework of the Transitional Justice Committee of Mapiripán, the plan of returns and relocations of  jiw people residing in this municipality was socialized and approved.

The community currently located in the territory known as Las Zaragozas will be relocated to three settlements: La Pacora, Rebelde and La Conquista, all belonging to the same indigenous reservation El Naexalt Laj.

"There are 230 families, who in total give us 1,023 individuals who receive this approval to their relocation process with great satisfaction, given their need to implement actions in a priority and urgent manner due to the situation of vulnerability in which they find themselves," he said. the territorial director for Meta and Eastern Plains of the Unit for the Victims, Carlos Pardo Alezones.

The official stressed that "with the approval of return and relocations Plan, the entities that are part of the National System of Attention and Integral Reparation to Victims acquire commitments to provide effective solutions on issues such as housing, education, food security, among others, in order to improve the living conditions and obtain advances in the effective reparation to this people that was affected by the violence in their ancestral territories".

According to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), the indigenous people known as Guayabero recognize themselves as jiw, whose largest number of indigenous inhabitants are in the department of Guaviare, also inhabiting Meta areas. They were nomadic communities, but the dispossession of their territory forced them to settle down. Still they are mobilized in canoes by the river and in hunting and gathering walks through the forest, agriculture is fundamental for their subsistence, at the same time as fishing and handicrafts.

(FIN/EVA/DFM/LMY)