The Victims Unit compensated more than 70 victims in Boyacá department, on Tuesday, as part of the comprehensive reparations they are entitled to as victims of the internal armed conflict, as established in Law 1448 of 2011. During a symbolic event, there were mainly relatives of victims of murder, forced disappearance, and kidnapping. They remembered those who are not with them anymore, and valued in a collective exercise all the achievements they got in life, in spite of the effects of the conflict.

The Victims Unit compensated more than 70 victims in Boyacá department, on Tuesday, as part of the comprehensive reparations they are entitled to as victims of the internal armed conflict, as established in Law 1448 of 2011. During a symbolic event, there were mainly relatives of victims of murder, forced disappearance, and kidnapping. They remembered those who are not with them anymore, and valued in a collective exercise all the achievements they got in life, in spite of the effects of the conflict.

‘The Victims Unit has been very responsible. We identified the victims’ need to receive financial training, but above all the possibility to have institutional availabilities for them,’ said Jorge Orlando Sánchez, territorial director of the Victims Unit for the departments of Tolima, Cundinamarca, Boyacá, and Bogotá. That’s why, according to Sánchez, the Unit organized a service fair where both public and private institutions talked about financial issues.

According to Natalia Medina Moreno, secretary of human development in the Boyacá Governorate, ‘the Victims Unit is our best ally in order to coordinate actions for victims’, and wish all the participant ‘a morning of new starts and opportunities.’

Blanca, an older woman from Boyacá, received her compensation. ‘I feel proud of having brought forward the case of my son, and that justice is made. Now, with this reparation, I hope it will help me buy a little house for my other daughter and my grandchildren.’

• For more information (in Spanish), please visit: http://www.unidadvictimas.gov.co/en/node/13052