Violence displaced more than 44,000 people in Colombia in the first six months of 2021, more than three times the number a year earlier, the country's rights ombudsman, the Defensora del Pueblo, said Tuesday.
Colombia is in the midst of its worst outbreak of violence since a 2016 peace deal ended decades of armed conflict.
Dissident FARC rebels who refused to lay down arms, still-active ELN guerillas, armed drug-trafficking groups and rightwing paramilitaries are all battling for control of lucrative cocaine and illegal mining zones.
Displacement rates today were approaching those of the 1990s, at the height of Colombia's internal conflict, said the Defensora del Pueblo.
In total, 44,290 people had to flee between January and June this year, compared to 13,912 in the same period of 2020.
The situation today was "identical or similar" to that in the 1990s, said official Carlos Camargo.
At that time, paramilitary groups attacked areas held by the FARC in a spiral of violence that left Colombia with the world's highest number of displaced people.
Some eight million people were displaced in the near six-decade conflict.
The problem today is worst in the rural areas, particularly in border regions where drug trafficking is rife and residents get caught up in fighting between armed gangs and soldiers, said the ombudsman.
Colombia is the world's major cocaine exporter, with the United States its biggest consumer.
The Defensora del Pueblo also highlighted a lesser-known problem of communities -- particularly indigenous people and Afro-Colombians -- being confined to their villages.
More than 36,000 people were confined in the first six months of 2021 for fear of their lives, the forced recruitment of minors or the presence of antipersonnel mines, it said.
Colombia's military said Tuesday that three soldiers were killed and five injured in fighting with FARC dissidents in the country's southwest.
The clashes occurred as troops were accompanying displaced families back home.
