Guerillas Force Colombian Farmers to Abandon Land

(13 October 09 –RV) CAFOD is joining forces with Caritas Colombia in their battle against a thriving drug trade that has caused thousands of poor farmers to abandon their lands under guerrilla threats. The Catholic Aid Agencies are urging world leaders to help them promote and safeguard agricultural development in rural Colombia to give small farmers an alternative to drug crops. The president of Caritas Colombia, Msgr. Hector Fabio Henao, says that increasingly the guerrilla groups involved in the nations 38 year-old civil war are taking over the drugs trade and victimising farmers…