Colombia is more in the news for its drug wars than its displacement crisis.   Yet it’s a crisis that comes second only to Sudan in terms of size and numbers of internally displaced people – an estimated three to four million.

Teodoro, his wife and sseven children once had an idyllic life. They lived in a community of Senu indigenous people on 40 hectares of land that provided them with everything they needed.  They had many trees, enough food to eat, and sell.  They lived with people they’d known all their lives.  But it all changed one night when paramilitary forces knocked on the door looking for him.

The paramilitary are in cahoots with landowners who have their sights on land parcels occupied by people like Teodoro and his community.  The conflict between the right wing paramilitary and left wing guerrillas has pushed a mass of people off their lands.  Sometimes people are killed so their families are frightened into leaving – sometimes, just the threat of violence is enough.

For Teodoro the visit by armed men at 2 am was enough.  He did what hundreds of thousands of his countrymen have done in recent years – he fled to the city slums.  Today he ekes out a thin living in Cazuca, just south of the capital, Bogota.  His family live in a two room shack where water comes only once every four to eight days.

He braved the traumatic wrench from his land, his farm, his livelihood and his community for security – but he’s had precious little of that in his new life.  His family is not financially secure and he worries that the slums are a dangerous place for his children to grow – he’s constantly worried about their whereabouts and their safety.

Meanwhile he tries to earn what he can from making indigenous jewellery and knick knacks, and he frequently makes an arduous and usually fruitless journey into town to ask for benefits for himself and others like him in the slum who have been told there’s help available but after months of waiting, are still surviving on air and promises.