The Victims Unit delivered these public monies this week to people benefiting from the priority repair route.

The Victims Unit in Antioquia continued this week with reparation days in Antioquia to benefit 324 people affected by the armed conflict with financial compensation to support their projects and improve their living conditions.

The delivery of letters of dignity and the notification of the bank drafts were carried out in the municipalities of Rionegro, San Carlos, Sonsón, Granada, San Rafael, Cocorná and Urrao, in recognition of the victimizing acts suffered such as homicide and forced disappearance of relatives, kidnapping, forced displacement, terrorist acts, torture and personal injury.

During the conference they were also guided by the officials of the Victims Unit and the local mayors in the inter-institutional offer for the adequate investment of these public monies.

Alba Restrepo was one of the 85 victims compensated in Rionegro, as a measure of reparation for the forced displacement that she suffered with her family in Concordia. She relates that it happened in 2000, "when an armed group came to the village where we lived and made us vacate the house or they killed us". After several years uprooted, they returned to their municipality and now she already has a plan for the compensation to have a restorative effect for her and her family. "This money does not compensate for what one suffered, but it is a joy because we are going to save it for a little house that we do not have", he said after receiving the dignity letter from the director of Ethnic Affairs of the Victims Unit, Luz Patricia Belt.

According to the official, "the financial compensation does not pay for the victimizing acts, but rather it is compensation that helps to recover the life projects of these people who suffered so much from the armed conflict".

In addition, she reiterated to the beneficiaries "not paying the processors who abound in the procedures that are free and do not need intermediaries to access the care and reparation measures".

These administrative compensations are part of the 548 delivered during the current month of September to victims of 48 Antioquia municipalities for a value of 5.500 million pesos.

In total, more than 1.130.000 administrative compensation have been awarded by the Victims Unit in the last nine years in Colombia in compliance with the Victims Law. Of these, about 270.000 in Antioquia.

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