The Colombian state must compensate victims of forced displacement at the hands of the armed forces, the country’s highest administrative court ruled Thursday.
The Council of State ruling followed a lawsuit by a family from a village in the northern department of Santander who were forced to flee their homes in 2008 following threats by members of the army’s 5th battalion who accused them of being FARC collaborators.
According to the administrative court, the government’s Victims Attention and Reparation Unit erroneously assumed that the country’s armed forces could not be guilty of forced displacement.
With the ruling, the administrative court ordered the State not only to compensate victims of displacement of illegal armed groups, but also those displaced by police, army and other branches of the armed forces.
