Venezuelan migrants face crime, conflict and coronavirus at Colombia’s closed border

Now there’s a pandemic, too – and its consequences for Venezuelan migrants go beyond health concerns. Criminal groups that operate in the border zones are capitalizing on the closure of all seven official border crossings to smuggle migrants Oil-rich Venezuela used to have one of Latin America’s most robust economies, but its His successor, Nicolás Maduro, left with a steeply unbalanced budget and dropping oil prices, has led the South American country into the abyss. By 2019, To date, 5 million people have fled persecution, poverty and political turmoil in Venezuela.

Before the pandemic, up to 40,000 Venezuelans were crossing the porous 1,378-mile Colombia-Venezuela border daily. Most of them remained in the country for a short period of time before passing onto other countries or returned to Venezuela that day after buying food, medicine and other items that are extremely scarce in Venezuela. But, typically, about 2,000 Venezuelans would end up staying for good in Colombia each day, according to

Despite efforts by international aid groups, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the Colombian government to assist the migrants, the situation along the border was “overwhelming,” a Bogotá official told us in February. But no government is entirely in charge of what happens at the Colombia-Venezuela border, which is nearly as long as the U.S.-Mexico border and runs through desert, dense jungles and the towering Andes mountains. An array of rebels, criminals and corrupt officials control informal border crossings, where they.