Football for Peace

Against this backdrop, Chocó, a region of Colombia that has historically been inhabited by Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, has been disproportionately affected by forced displacement, loss of territory dispossession and, in general, systematic violations of the human rights of these communities.

According to reports from the Colombian Ministry of the Interior, the department of Chocó began to be affected by armed actors from the mid-1970s, becoming a strategic location for guerrilla groups. Moreover, at the end of the 1990s, the armed conflict worsened in this area with the paramilitary invasion, affecting the lives of civilians and violating the rights of the Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people of the area.

In 2017, according to the National Information Network of the Victims Unit, a total of 452,012 victims of the armed conflict were reported in the department of Chocó, this being more than 88% of the total population of the department. In addition, the Victims Unit reports that in the municipality of Litoral del San Juan, 18,904 people were victims of the armed conflict between 1985 to January 2018.

According to Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, the department of Chocó has been one of the most affected by forced displacement product of the armed conflict, and equally, it is one of the most affected regions from multidimensional poverty, where 72% of the population is poor in Chocó and 81% of households do not have sewage service. 

Since the signing of the peace agreement, sadly, violence has increased in Chocó, and children have been largely impacted. Valeria Murillo, a ten-year old girl with dreams of being a dance teacher, who was part of our project in 2019 with ACADESAN (San Juan Community Council) was tragically killed by a stray bullet of an armed group in Bajo San Juan (Chocó) on January 15, 2022.