CNN
Guerrilla war displaces millions of Colombians
May 22 -- Imagine the entire population of Kentucky forced out of their homes in the past 25 years, with many of the residents moving to a neighboring country.
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That's what has happened in Colombia, a country of 45 million where up to 4 million people -- roughly the population of Kentucky -- have been forced to flee fighting between government forces and an entrenched Marxist rebel group. So many Colombians have taken flight to escape violence that the nation has the second largest number of internally displaced people in the world -- surpassed only by Sudan in Africa.
Oftentimes, the violence is not incidental.
"Violence against civilians is a strategy of war for all the parties involved in the warfare," said Ellen Beattie, who worked for relief agencies in Colombia for 15 years. "That's the problem. They do it on purpose. They use it as a strategy. Vicious."
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