[NYTr] Number of Colombian refugees in Ecuador rises to 1,600

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via Intl Herald Tribune - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/27/america/LA-GEN-Ecuador-Colombian-Refugees.php

Number of Colombian refugees in Ecuador rises to 1,600

The Associated Press

Quito, Ecuador: The number of refugees who have recently crossed the
border into Ecuador to escape fighting between leftist rebels and
soldiers in Colombia has risen to 1,600, the United Nations and local
officials said.

The refugees are being housed in 11 shelters near the border and their
basic needs are being met for now, said Andrea Escalanta, a spokeswoman
for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, on Sunday.

Escalanta said some of the refugees might be moved from their current
location in San Lorenzo, 12 kilometers (eight miles) from the border, to
cities such as Esmeraldas or Ibarra.

UNHCR legal representatives are trying to determine how many refugees
want to seek asylum in Ecuador and how many would return to Colombia if
their safety is assured, she said.

The agency said there are now 1,600 refugees in the shelters, up from
about 1,100 early Saturday. San Lorenzo Mayor Gustavo Samaniego
confirmed the figure. Relief workers say the refugees began arriving in
San Lorenzo on Thursday.

There are about 250,000 refugees living in Ecuador, most of them
Colombians who have fled an internal armed conflict that has raged
there for more than 40 years.

The U.N. estimates about 3 million Colombians have been driven from
their homes by violence without leaving the country - making it the
largest internal refugee population in the world after Sudan. The
government's definition of a refugee puts the number at about 2 million.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has accused his nation's largest
guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, of forcing
peasants to flee to Ecuador in a bid to undermine relations between the
nations.