On March 29, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “In #AcciónHumanitariaCarrizal [humanitarian action Carrizal] we accompany @CAHUCOPANA [the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia], who bring together peasant mining communities to discuss #crisishumanitaria [humanitarian crisis]: ‘Peasant protection and self-protection mechanisms are the only guaranteed tool to stay in the area’”

Carrizal is a village/hamlet in the municipality of Remedios in the department of Antioquia in the subregion of Northeastern Antioquia.

PBI-Colombia has previously explained: “The abundance of natural resources in these lands and the arrival of multinational companies, such as the Canadian Gran Colombia Gold, has provided the illegal armed groups who are present in the region with an extremely lucrative funding source in mining.”

And El Espectador has reported: “The presence of armed groups has been a constant. First came the guerrillas, such as the extinct FARC, during the eighties. Ten years later, with the emergence of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the municipality became a place of dispute over the richness of its gold-mined land.”

That article adds: “According to its inhabitants, this wealth has belonged to armed groups and multinationals that, according to trade unionists, committed crimes to keep most of the territory to exploit this mineral with titles in perpetuity.”

For more on PBI-Colombia’s accompaniment on CAHUCOPANA this week, please see: PBI-Colombia accompanies CAHUCOPANA at two-day humanitarian action in the village of Carrizal, Antioquia.

 
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