Reconciliation is an important part of peacebuilding, but the people living in exile are often forgotten about in the process. Most recently, Colombia has become the first country to listen to the voices of the exiled population. Jehisson Santacruz, who fled to Switzerland, is one of them.

Between 1958 and 2016, the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups and far-left guerrilla groups such as FARC were at war with each other, and the conflict is not yet settled. In 2018, the Colombian government launched a truth commission to investigate and clarify human rights violations committed during the war.

The Colombian Truth Commission aims to pursue the clarification of the causes and patterns of the conflict, and why it lasted for so long. It makes recommendations on how government and civil society can prevent a similar civil-war-like situation and aims to provide the modern Colombian society with the truth of what really happened.

Jehisson Iván Santacruz Giraldo is one of 60 witnesses who testified in Switzerland, where we met him to hear his story.
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