Refugees International Reports 'Mexico's Internally Displaced an Invisible Problem' Kyra Gurney - InSight Crime
go to original July 25, 2014

Read Refugees International's field report "Mexico's Unseen Victims" (pdf)

Hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico have been internally displaced due to violence perpetrated by organized crime groups but the majority have yet to receive adequate assistance from Mexican authorities, who have largely turned a blind eye to the problem.

At the Second Regional Humanitarian Conference on Forced Migrations in Bogota, Colombia, Sarnata Reynolds - a senior advisor on human rights from Refugees International (RI) - presented a field report on the country's internally displaced persons (IDPs) entitled "Mexico's Unseen Victims" (pdf). The report is the product of field research conducted by RI in Mexico in May and June this year.

The organization found that individuals displaced by criminal organizations shared three characteristics: 1) they were fleeing extreme violence in the form of  murder, kidnapping, or disappearance of at least one family member; 2) they faced serious economic problems after displacement, including difficulty finding work; 3) they had lost land and property without receiving any economic compensation.

According to RI, criminal groups in Mexico seek control over land for a variety of reasons, including the cultivation of crops used to produce drugs, control of natural resources and establishment of drug trafficking routes. The organization found that many IDPs had been directly forced out of their communities by criminal organizations - who either threatened or perpetrated violence against them or their families - while others had fled violence caused by territorial disputes between rival groups, military offensives, or battles with self-defense militias.

Read the rest at InSight Crime

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