'Everyone wants to go back home'
Cucuta, Colombia – On the eleventh of February, a baby girl was born by Caesarean section in the riverside town of Tibu, Colombia. Five days later, her family's home lay empty.
Forced to flee Tibu under the cover of night, they had joined the more than 55,000 people who have been displaced by a fresh eruption of violence.
For more than six decades, Colombia has contended with a deadly internal conflict between government forces, left-wing rebels, criminal networks and right-wing paramilitaries.
A breakthrough, however, arrived in 2016: The Colombian government signed an agreement with the largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), for its fighters to lay down their arms.
But the violence in Catatumbo, the region where Tibu is located, is the latest indication of how elusive peace can be.
Since January 18, FARC dissidents who refused the 2016 peace deal have clashed with members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), another rebel group.
Confronted with kidnappings, shootings and explosions, tens of thousands of people in Catatumbo have since abandoned their homes. The United Nations has called it the largest mass displacement caused by a single event in Colombia since its records began.
The baby girl and her five-year-old brother are among those displaced. She cries as her stroller rattles over the paving stones that surround a medical care tent in the city of Cucuta, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of where she was born.
Her 26-year-old mother, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, was only days into her postpartum period when she had to pack her children and leave. In Tibu, she feared ELN fighters would come for her family.
'They were threatening us,' said the mother, her dark hair falling over the shoulders of her pink dress as she sat in one of the plastic chairs outside the medical tent. 'We were so afraid that we had to leave.'
She explained the ELN had released a series of photos depicting supposed FARC collaborators — and her husband was among them. Fearing ELN fighters were watching the roads, she was forced to leave him behind in order to escape.
'I'm worried for my husband because he's still there,' she said, a silver-coloured wedding ring flashing on the hand she used to rock the baby's stroller. 'I hope he will be able to leave so he can join us here.'
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