The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) presented on Thursday the balance of its main humanitarian concerns in Colombia, highlighting a deterioration of security conditions in the most remote areas of the country. The cases of armed conflicts and the violence that has continued to plague Colombia in recent decades, as well as the recent mass exodus of Venezuelan migrants, showed a complex humanitarian context.
A study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) estimates the direct annual cost of crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean at US$261 billion or 3.55% of GDP, roughly what the region invests on infrastructure and double the average cost for developed countries. It is also the equivalent income for 30% of the poorest population, underscoring the grave development impact violence has on the region.
Three out of ten Argentine households have been a victim of crime in 2009, according to the latest poll from the Argentine Catholic University, UCA, published Sunday in the Buenos Aires daily Clarin.