AMERICA/PERU - Thirty thousand people will be evicted, Mgr. Bambaren calls for dialogue

Friday, 7 October 2016 poverty   violence   bishops  

Chimbote (Agenzia Fides) - Through a letter published on social networks, the Bishop Emeritus of Chimbote, His Exc. Mgr. Luis Bambarén Gastelumendi, calls for dialogue and has spoken out against the possible evacuation of about 30,000 people who settled on the lands destined by the government to the Chinecas Special Project. The Bishop has invited local and regional authorities to avoid eviction because, according to him, it would be very violent and would only lead to pain, injuries and destruction. "And all this for what? Simply to continue to have a desert to be watered with blood?" writes Mgr. Bambarén.
The Chinecas Special Project envisages a complex of hydraulic infrastructures for the treatment and distribution of water. The government has allocated for this purpose 217 hectares of land in Chimbote, in the almost desert area north of Peru, approximately 800 km from the capital. Last July a part of this land was invaded by the local people, tired of waiting, who settled in by building shacks as houses. Indecision on the distribution of these lands has increased as a result of the amount of families that have settled there.
Mgr. Bambaren expressed solidarity with the families, and faced with the possibility of eviction from the area they occupy, the Bishop asked: "Why have the project leaders not done anything and allowed more and more poor families to arrive and build their miserable homes?". Finally, says the note sent to Fides, the Bishop expressed his confidence for a just and peaceful solution of this situation. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 07/10/2016)


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