For Afro-Colombians evicted from their land in north-western Colombia and along the Pacific coast, the loss of familiar surroundings of lush jungle and rugged mountains can be devastating.

Take Yajaira, a slender 18-year-old, one of four children whose family was displaced from a settlement in the Cacarica river basin just south of Colombia`s border with Panama.

She misses her place of origin deeply.

My home was surrounded by banana and mango trees, and coconut palms, she recalls, fingering a bracelet she wears made of seeds and feathers gathered in tropical forests.

We used to bathe and fish in a nearby stream.

Currently, Yayaira spends part of the year in Bogota, Colombia`s Andean capital, where blue-black clouds seem to hover perpetually over the city.

It often rains and it is cold, in sharp contrast to the sultry heat of the north-west.

Tens of thousands of other displaced Afro-Colombians are also dispersed in Colombian cities.

Many live precariously in sprawling shantytowns, such as Ciudad Bolivar, in the south of the capital.