Accompaniment program launched in Colombia

An ecumenical accompaniment program has been launched to assist
victims of violence in Colombia, where internal armed conflict has
driven nearly 5 million people away from their land and property,
according to the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI).

"The
churches have been asked to break the silence and communicate all the
atrocities taking place in Colombia," Carlos E. Ham, program executive
for Diakonia and Latin America-Caribbean with the Geneva-based World
Council of Churches, said in an interview October 18.

In December
2009, Colombia's attorney general reported 2,520 cases of forced
disappearances of people, out of a total of 35,665 crimes confessed by
paramilitary forces. A reported 2,388 burial pits were found in the
country and 2,091 bodies exhumed, the report said.