Civil war refugees want government to recognize them

When a Marxist rebel group told Julio Roberto Pedraza to hand over his land or his two sons would be forced into its ranks, Pedraza and his family of 14 piled into the first vehicle passing by -- a truck hauling firewood to the nation's capital.

They arrived in Bogota from their village in southwest Colombia with nothing but the shirts on their backs and spent the next two years in a tin shack, scraping a living through odd jobs.

Like of thousands of other families in Bogota displaced by the nation's civil war, one of their biggest troubles is that they don't have identity cards or papers -- without which they can't get a proper job or qualify for emergency assistance, since the state doesn't formally know they exist.

This month, though, the Bogota mayor's office and the UN took a step toward ending their legal limbo with a series of pilot programs to document displaced families in some of Bogota's poorest and most violent neighborhoods.

Pedraza, 37, and his family stood in long lines in a dusty school yard in the Ciudad Bolivar slum last week to take free blood tests and photographs before providing a signed testimony of their flight from violence, all of which is required to receive documentation.

Recent obliges authorities to accept their testimony on good faith because most don't dare return to their homes to find proof of their origins.

Pedraza that with papers, he will build a better life.

"I can't feed my family," said Pedraza, a small weathered man who still prefers to wear farm garments and rubber boots. "I hope the state will be able to help me a little bit."

A 40-year-old civil war in Colombia that pits two leftist rebel groups against right-wing paramilitary fighters and government forces has displaced between 2 and 3 million people, about 8 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.

Nearly families forced from their homes make their way to Bogota's slums every year. That prompted Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzon to declare a state of emergency in refuge-flooded Ciudad Bolivar earlier this year.

The government increased efforts to provide welfare and health services to refugees after a Colombian court in January ordered President Alvaro Uribe to fulfill a promise to address the issue. But it's a logistical and financial nightmare.

In Ciudad Bolivar, few people know their rights. Even fewer have the money to pay for documents recognizing their refugee status -- or even their very existence.

"They have to get blood tests -- that's 10,000 pesos (US$4). They have to get photographs -- that's anything from 5,000 (US$2) to 10,000 pesos (US$4)," said Zandra Munoz, director of City Hall's refugee outreach effort. "When you're looking at a family with five kids or more, they can't even afford the bus fare to get to the registrar's office."

And those who do register, there is a two-year waiting list for emergency assistance, which then provides three months of food, shelter, education and social security.

An signed earlier this year by the government, local authorities and international organizations simplified and sped up the documentation process, paving the way for the pilot projects in Ciudad Bolivar and elsewhere.

Aldo Morales of the United Nations refugee agency said the program was hugely popular and hopes it will eventually be repeated across the country.

"We will probably register around 2,000 people," says Morales. "But for every thousand that come today we know there are thousands that we've missed."