The Colombian conflict () began on May 27, 1964, and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and far-left guerrilla groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Some of the most important international contributors to the Colombian conflict include multinational corporations, the United States, Cuba, and the drug trafficking industry. The conflict is historically rooted in the conflict known as La Violencia, which was triggered by the 1948 assassination of liberal political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and in the aftermath of the anti-communist repression in rural Colombia in the 1960s that led Liberal and Communist militants to re-organize into FARC. The reasons for fighting vary from group to group. The FARC and other guerrilla movements claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor in Colombia to protect them from government violence and to provide social justice through communism. The Colombian government claims to be fighting for order and stability, and to protect the rights and interests of its citizens. The paramilitary groups claim to be reacting to perceived threats by guerrilla movements. According to a study by Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory, 220,000 people have died in the conflict between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians (177,307 civilians and 40,787 fighters), and more than five million civilians were forced from their homes between 1985 and 2012, generating the world's second-largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs). 16.9% of the population in Colombia has been a direct victim of the war. 2.3 million children have been displaced from their homes, and 45,000 children killed, according to national figures cited by UNICEF. In total, one in three of the 7.6 million registered victims of the conflict are children, and since 1985, 8,000 minors have disappeared. A Special Unit was created to search for persons deemed as missing within the context of and due to the armed conflict. As of April 2022, the Single Registry of Victims reported 9,263,826 victims of the Colombian conflict, with 2,048,563 of them being children. The United Nations has estimated that 12% of all civilian deaths in the Colombian conflict were caused by FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, with 80% caused by right-wing paramilitaries, and the remaining 8% caused by