Abstract:
The arrival of approximately 300,000 thousand Colombian refugees in Ecuador during the last two decades has introduced several changes in the country's economic, political, social and cultural landscape. Displaced by the magnitude and ferocity of the Colombian conflict, refugees encounter a multiplicity of challenges upon their arrival in the country, from deep suspicion to fierce discrimination and xenophobia, and they struggle to reconstruct their lives in the middle of adversity. In this context, strategies to integrate refugees into local communities (sponsored mainly by the Ecuadorian government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - UNHCR) have encountered several challenges, since the majority of the population fear that the massive violence present in Colombia can be imported into their communities via the presence of refugees.
