Source: BBC
By Lucy Ash

A Colombian woman who denounced armed groups for sexually abusing women and girls was abducted by the militants and subjected to a terrible punishment. Her story illustrates just how much power lies in the hands of armed men in Colombia – despite a ceasefire by the left-wing Farc rebels – and how lawless some parts of the country remain.

A statuesque Afro-Colombian woman wearing a bright turban and loose flowing robes hovers over her patient and gently prods his stomach.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks the man who is lying on his back in a room filled with plants and brightly coloured posters. She uses traditional medicine made from roots and seeds to heal her patients at the Armed Conflict Victims Centre in a rundown suburb of Bogota.

People come to this state-run clinic to share their stories and get some relief from the suffering they have endured in a war between left-wing guerrillas and the army, which has lasted for more than half a century.

Maria, the healer in the turban, is herself recovering from a terrible ordeal, which led to her being driven from her home.

Image copyrightEUGENIA RODRIGUEZ PERIA

Like one in every 10 Colombians, she has become a refugee in her own country. Nearly seven million people have been uprooted and more than 220,000 killed since 1964 when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), took up arms against the state to demand social equality and land reform. And although the Farc has agreed a ceasefire and there is a hope for an end to the insurgency, other armed groups, including right-wing paramilitaries, still terrorise large areas of the country.