Hope, violence and displacement

Multiple challenges

Not unexpectedly, turning the words of the peace agreement into action has been demanding. Demobilisation and disarmament of FARC was scheduled to happen before the end of May 2017, but the process kept being delayed.

Meanwhile, paramilitary groups and criminal gangs moved into areas that FARC had left, and made life unsafe for the local population. In the beginning of 2017, a number of human rights activists and local leaders were killed, and people were still being displaced.

Social and economic inequality, where a small elite controls more than half of the land, is an underlying cause to the conflict in Colombia. To achieve lasting peace, and for the displaced people to be able to return home, doing something about this inequality will be pivotal.

The fact that the government has not been able to secure a final peace agreement with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second largest guerrilla movement in the country, is another challenge for the peace process.

Refugees in neighbouring countries

The majority of people forced to flee during the civil war in Colombia are now internally displaced. But there are also hundreds of thousands who have fled to other countries, primarily the neighbouring countries Ecuador and Venezuela.

Most refugees are staying in areas near Colombia's border, where health care services and opportunities for work and education are limited. Security is poor, and there are reports of widespread abuse toward women and children.

Both in Ecuador and Venezuela, governments have taken steps to improve the situation of the Colombian refugees. However, progress is slow, and in Venezuela both refugees and the local population are impacted by the serious humanitarian and political crisis in the country.

Leaving a country in crisis

Political crisis has led to an increasing lack of food, medicines and other vital necessities in Venezuela. Malnourishment and child mortality have increased, and health care services are about to collapse. Inflation has reached several hundred percent per year.

The crisis has caused many Venezuelans to leave the country. Few register as refugees, but according to the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Venezuelans seeking asylum is increasing.

Between 2011 and 2016, 40,000 Venezuelans sought asylum in other countries. More than half of these, 27,000, sought asylum in 2016, primarily in Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Spain and the US.

Violence and crime in Central America

Despite its challenges, the peace agreement in Colombia is an important step towards peace and reconciliation. In other countries on the continent, the development is less uplifting. In the area called "the Northern Triangle" of Central America – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – the situation is especially grim.

The population in these countries are suffering under extensive violence and assaults by well-organised criminal gangs. Murder rates are high in all three countries, but the situation is most dire in El Salvador, which saw 81 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, according to a report from the International Crisis Group published in April 2017. This rate is more than three times as high as the average in Latin America.

The criminal gangs are involved in drug trade, human trafficking and arms trafficking and their main source of income is money extortion. They coerce money both from businesses and individuals, in change for protection. Those who do not pay, risk exposing themselves to violence, and, at worst, being killed.

Fighting the gangs without results

The criminal gangs of Central America arose in the aftermath of the civil wars before the turn of the century. Poverty and considerable economic and social inequality provided good conditions for the gangs to grow, and mass deportations of Central Americans from the US near the end of the 1990's stimulated recruitment.

The governments of the Central American countries have launched different measures to attempt to handle the gangs, but with little success. Imprisoned gang members have continued to run their organisations from behind bars.

Part of the reason why the measures have yielded poor results, is that governments have not dealt with the underlying issues contributing to youth being recruited to the gangs – poverty and social and economic marginalisation. The gangs have instead been treated solely as a security issue.

More people seeking asylum in Mexico

Violence and poor security have caused many to leave the "Northern Triangle". People have customarily travelled through Mexico on their way to the US. This pattern is, however, changing. Many people still want to reach the US, but Mexico is increasingly the target for refugees and migrants, and no longer just part of the route.

Data from UNHCR show that the last years have seen a sharp rise in the number of people seeking asylum in Mexico. In 2016, the country received almost 9,000 applications for asylum, a rise from about 3,500 the previous year.

Previous years, the US and Canada have seen the greatest rise in asylum seekers from the "Northern Triangle". In 2016, however, both Costa Rica and Panama saw a big increase in asylum seekers, in addition to Mexico. There was a smaller increase in Belize and Nicaragua.

Fleeing from disasters in Haiti

Haiti is regularly struck by disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and drought. The hurricane "Matthew", which hit Haiti in October 2016, was the biggest disaster to hit the country since the earthquake in 2010. The storm devastated food production, and forced 175,000 people to leave their homes.

Disasters have made many leave Haiti. Many have gone to the Dominican Republic, but many have also made their way to the US. More than 50,000 people have been granted temporary residence permits in the US since the earthquake in 2010.

The temporary residence granted Haitians has been regularly renewed, the last time until 22 July 2017. In the first half of 2017, however, uncertainty reigned as to what would happen to the Haitians after this, as American immigration services have indicated that they might end the arrangement.

Immigration controversy

Refugee and immigration politics were high on the agenda throughout the 2016 US presidential campaign. Donald Trump considered his key issues to be cuts in immigration, strengthened border controls and mass deportations of immigrants.

During the campaign, Trump promised to build a wall on the border to Mexico, in order to halt illegal immigration. He claimed that illegal immigration in large part consisted of Mexican drug traffickers and rapists. The harsh language caused strong reactions, but attempting to curb immigration from Mexico is not a new concept.

The US has focused on building border fences and strengthening border controls for many years now, and the efforts have paid off: according to the American Pew Research Center, the number of Mexicans living illegally in the US decreased from 6.9 million in 2007 to 5.8 million in 2015.

The controversial travel ban

Shortly after being sworn in as president in January 2017, Trump issued an executive order that imposed a 90-day travel ban targeting inhabitants from seven Middle-Eastern and African countries with predominantly Muslim populations. The presidential order also put a stop to the reception of Syrian refugees.

The presidential order was met with massive protests, and was quickly blocked by a New York judge, who deemed it unconstitutional.

A few weeks later, Trump launched a revised version of the travel ban, but once again the justice system stopped the ban.

Displaced to Canada

Because of Trump's promises of tighter immigration control, Canada experienced a significant increase in asylum seekers arriving from the US, in the first months of 2017. 

Throughout January and February 2017, Canadian police stopped 1,134 asylum seekers, most of them from countries in Africa and the Middle East, illegally entering Canada from the US.