Perhaps our Correspondent at the South American Desk can add to this report.<\/p>\n
‘Get me back to Caracas’: desperate Venezuelans leave lockdown Bogot\u00e1<\/a><\/p>\n Rosa Vera, a 40-year-old from a small town in crisis-ridden Venezuela, thought moving to Colombia would give her the chance to find work. Five months ago, she left her family and began the arduous journey to Bogot\u00e1, the Colombian capital, to look for a job.<\/p>\n Instead, as coronavirus shut down economic life in the city, Vera and more than 400 Venezuelans had no choice but to camp out for a month, waiting for help to get them home.<\/p>\n \u201cI left Venezuela because the situation was so bad that I couldn\u2019t feed my family,\u201d Vera says, as cars whizz along the highway that cuts through the impromptu camp. \u201cI never thought that here I wouldn\u2019t be able to feed myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Venezuela, despite having the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, is mired in economic and social ruin. Hyperinflation is rampant, rendering the currency, the bolivar, practically useless, while food shortages are a daily reality.<\/p>\n I can knock on doors but if there\u2019s no work, what can I do? Going home is the only option I have<\/p>\n More than 4 million Venezuelans have now left, with about 5,000 crossing into neighbouring Colombia each day at the end of last year, according to data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Nearly 2 million live in Colombia.<\/p>\n But now, with lockdown shuttering businesses and keeping customers away, there is little work for Venezuelans such as Vera. Unable to pay rent, she was evicted from the house she shared with other migrants in the south of Bogot\u00e1. She has spent the past month camped outside a bus terminal on the northern outskirts of the city. Vera, like the 430 others here, would rather be home in Venezuela, where at least shelter is guaranteed. \u201cI can knock on doors but if there\u2019s no work, what can I do?\u201d Vera asks, as she washes her clothes in a stream. \u201cGoing home is the only option I have.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dream is to get home and get a roof over my head,\u201d Vera says. \u201cWith a little help from God, I\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n Last Thursday morning the city began bussing the migrants towards the border. Between rain showers, hundreds of hungry Venezuelans packed up their tents and queued for buses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Gregorio Fuentes, 56, from Venezuela\u2019s western Portuguesa state, was among the stranded migrants who set up the makeshift camp in late May. I\u2019m taking each day as it comes, trying to stay healthy until I can get home Responsibilities in the camp were divided between a handful of leaders including Fuentes. Some supervised food distribution or helped repair the makeshift latrine, others kept a census or gave religious sermons. Police kept watch outside.<\/p>\n Locals occasionally donated food from the windows of their cars, while NGOs \u2013 including the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) \u2013 told residents how to limit the risks of contracting Covid-19 and helped with onward journeys. The IRC sporadically provided hot meals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe health risks for those in the camp were multiple: the cold, the dampness, the rain, all of this makes them more vulnerable to a respiratory disease,\u201d says Marianne Menjivar, the IRC\u2019s representative in Colombia. \u201cIt really is an unfortunate situation and one that you don\u2019t want any human being to be in during a pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n No resident has shown symptoms of Covid-19, though outside the two ditches that border the camp, cases are skyrocketing. Colombia, despite months of lockdown, is seeing infections jump at record rates, recently passing 4,000 daily confirmed cases for the first time. This week, the country passed 100,000 cases.<\/p>\n But for many at the camp, the pandemic is low on their list of concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cGet me back to Caracas, then I\u2019ll worry about getting sick,\u201d says Vilmara Lopez, 54, who has been living in the camp for three weeks.<\/p>\n Juana Leiva, 70, arrived in Bogot\u00e1 in late February with her family. \u201cI\u2019m taking each day as it comes, trying to stay healthy until I can get home,\u201d she says, sitting in front of her tent as one of her infant great-nephews plays around her.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s migration agency has reported that daily entries from Venezuela have been cut by 80%, and that more than 71,000 have returned to the country, where they face a strict quarantine in squalid conditions on arrival.<\/p>\n When the lockdown came into effect in late March, some Venezuelans began trekking home across the Andes. But most are relying on city officials to help them get to the border.<\/p>\n \u201cEach night I pray and think of my country,\u201d says Vera, ringing out ditchwater from her clothes. \u201cSoon I will be back there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Perhaps our Correspondent at the South American Desk can add to this report. ‘Get me back to Caracas’: desperate Venezuelans leave lockdown Bogot\u00e1 Rosa Vera, a 40-year-old from a small town in crisis-ridden Venezuela, thought moving to Colombia would give her the chance to find work. Five months ago, she left her family and began … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56709,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56706\/revisions\/56709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNow, with his wife, he helps the other residents.<\/p>\n
\nJuana Leiva, camp resident
\n\u201cKeeping the place clean and sanitary is our priority, because just one case of the coronavirus would spread like wildfire,\u201d Fuentes says, wearing a face mask like most in the camp.<\/p>\n