Only a decade ago, the Nuka Make, a Colombian indigenous community, lived a peaceful life disconnected from the modern world. Nomadic hunter-gatherers, they roamed a chunk of the Amazon three times the size of London, spending days trekking to one corner just to fish, then weeks to another to hunt.
Now driven out of their territory by the Farce left-wing guerrillas, the tribe occupies a shabby glade half the size of a football field on the outskirts of a frontier town, San José del Guaviare. "We fled day and night through the jungle," a young woman, Monica, says. "Finally we arrived in this place, no one is happy here."
The Nuka say their new home is poor for hunting and fishing. Local farmers get angry when they hunt in the forests. To make up for the loss of food, Acción Social, the government's aid organisation, delivers rations. However, the women say it is not sufficient. "They often forget to bring us the rations, and sometimes it is not enough," says Sandra, a young Nuka mother. "We do not like some of the things they give us, our bodies are not used to it."
