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Manuel Suárez, indigenous community leader, speaking with RI's team in February.

In February 2012, RI visited the riverside community of Gambote, in Colombia's Bolívar Department. We spoke with Manuel Suárez, a local indigenous leader who had been displaced by violence in neighboring Córdoba Department. But as Manuel told us in the video below, his community needed to be relocated again – this time because of devastating floods in the area.

For years Colombia's 1.2 million indigenous people have been stuck in a precarious situation, with violence, disappearances, threats, and forced displacement continuing to plague their community. So in the coming months, as Colombia rolls out a new set of laws and institutions to aid displaced people, it will be critical that the indigenous – and especially those doubly affected by force and flood – are assisted.

For more on the implementation of the Victims Law, see our Back From the Field page on RI’s recent mission to Colombia. RI’s full report from that mission will be published in early September.