Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos (front left) and the top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), Rodrigo Londono, known by the alias Timochenko, shake hands after signing the peace agreement between the government and the Farc to end over 50 years of conflict, in Cartagena, Colombia, September 26, 2016
DOZENS of former guerilla fighters and their families were forced to abandon their village in southern Colombia on Tuesday.
This came after they received threats from members of a rebel group that is still fighting the government, authorities said.
The displaced former fighters were members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerilla group that signed a peace deal with Colombia’s government in 2016.
The former fighters who had been living in Miravalle, a village built for them by Colombia’s government, were relocated to another village inhabited by former Farc fighters 124 miles to the south.
But in June, the Ivan Diaz front, a rebel group that is vying for control of farmland and drug-trafficking routes in Colombia’s Caqueta province, accused the residents of Miravalle of aiding another rebel group in the area, and gave them 40 days to leave.
“We are leaving this place, but we'll continue to focus on building peace,” Carlos Zamudio, a former Farc fighter who had been living in Miravalle for the past seven years, said in a video published by the ARN, a Colombian government agency that helps former fighters.
Following the 2016 peace deal, in which more than 14,000 Farc fighters laid down their weapons, the Colombian government created 24 villages in rural areas, where the former fighters could live.
