Alain Berset highlighted Swiss support for humanitarian and peace projects during a visit to conflict-affected districts of the Pacific port city of Buenaventura.
Interior Minister Berset, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency for 2023, is the first foreign head of state to visit the disadvantaged areas of the city, the Keystone-SDA news agency reported on Tuesday.
During the tour, he spoke to locals impacted by violence, including a woman who lost her son in a massacre 18 years ago. He also met a bishop who with Swiss support is trying to mediate between criminal gangs in the city.
Little progress towards peace has however been made in the conflict-affected areas.
Berset told Keystone-SDA that this in turn affects the humanitarian situation, notably the displacement of people. Colombia is one of the countries with the most internally displaced people in the world – in 2022 alone, some 83,000.
Human rights defenders are also regularly killed in the country. Particularly in rural areas, various armed groups have replaced the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), such as former guerrilla dissidents, paramilitary groups as well as criminal organisations.
Berset said that Switzerland has for years backed projects to strengthen the structures of civil society, protect the population and promote political participation in Colombia. At the same time, it is also involved in international efforts in collaboration with the World Food Programme, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Red Cross.
However, latest plans for Swiss development aid will see Colombia disappear from the list of “priority” countries by 2028. Regions taking precedence will be sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe – notably Ukraine.