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Bolivia

Bolivian flood refugees dream of going home

By Helen Popper

SAN JULIAN, Bolivia, March 21 (Reuters) - Floodwaters wrecked Francisca Ortiz's house and swept away nearly all her animals. The one pig she managed to save was stolen in the refugee camp she has called home for the past three months.

The 75-year-old grandmother is one of about 20,000 Bolivian refugees living in tents in and around the eastern town of San Julian, which is at the heart of a rural area that has been under water since the Rio Grande river burst its banks in January.

"We didn't want to leave our house but the water was coming and coming and there was nothing we could do," said Ortiz, sitting on a wooden stool outside the plastic tent, supplied by the U.S. Agency for International Development, that her family shares with another.

As the women cooked dinner on campfires, men watched a rowdy soccer match on the muddy field around which the tents are arranged in rows.

Life is difficult at the camp, which is crowded, hot and noisy, residents say. Officials have reported several cases of children being sexually abused. What makes matters worse is that no one knows when, or if, they will be able to go home.

The Bolivian government is due to launch a recovery plan for flood victims nationwide on Wednesday but U.N. officials say many of the people in San Julian will be in tents for at least six months because the floodwaters are not going down.

"It's sad for us. We're wondering when we can return to our village," said Benita Gutierrez, who tells how local officials ordered them to leave their farmstead as their pigs, cows and chickens drowned around them.

LOOKING ELSEWHERE

Others think they will never return. "We're hoping they can take us to another place," said teenager Ruth Vargas. "There's not much future in going back."

Other parts of Bolivia have been badly affected by flooding, too, and aid workers say nearly 39,000 families have lost either crops, homes or livestock.

U.N. officials say the Rio Grande has changed its course, meaning some areas may never again be habitable.

"The people have great hopes to return to their homes when the water goes down," said Juan Carlos Orrego, a U.N. specialist who has been advising the government. "We're not ruling out that possibility but it's our responsibility to come up with a solution."

San Julian lies in the farming province of Santa Cruz, one of the wealthiest regions in South America's poorest country in part due to its soy plantations, but most of those affected by the floods were peasant families.

U.N. officials say it was deforestation by farmers that led the river to change its course, destroying tens of thousands of acres of crops, including soy and corn.

"There is a law limiting how close you can plant to the river but there was no type of protection here," said Joel Vargas, liaison officer for the U.N. Development Program. "There are rules. The problem is with enforcing them."