NewsLatin AmericaJungle or sea, the crossroads of Venezuelan migrants

Jungle or sea, the crossroads of Venezuelan migrants

Tik Tok is the thermometer of the dynamics of Venezuelan migration. Through this social network, they share the hardships that they experience in the Darien jungle, the search for the disappeared, and even images of the dead that remain on that dangerous route. And now, it is the social network through which they coordinate a no less dangerous path: the open sea route from San Andres to Nicaragua. They are at the crossroads between the jungle and the water.

“It was not easy. I arrived after waiting 12 days (to board) in San Andres. The trip took quite a while. From here to Managua and then to Honduras”, Leander Mata told through Tik Tok when he was already in Nicaragua after more than three hours in the open sea. He had also shown the moment in which he crossed the border to Colombia and “left Venezuela behind”, as he himself said with a broken voice, to begin the dream of reaching the United States.

A day later he was in San Andres, where he arrived by plane, showed his lodging in a native inn and the moment before getting on a boat that would take him from the Colombian island to Nicaragua. “I’m waiting for what everyone knows,” he said. From the United States, where he finally arrived nearly a month later, he now admits it was not an easy journey. “But we are alive,” he said on WhatsApp. The phrase sounds obvious but it is not so because the risks of traveling in single-engine boats without maritime communication mechanisms are enormous.

After the dangerous Darien trail, through which 28,000 Venezuelan migrants have passed so far this year and in which they face robberies, sexual abuse of women and disappearance; the road from San Andres to Nicaragua and Costa Rica is becoming a growing option among this community. In the first five months of 2022, the Colombian Navy and Migration have detected 238 irregular migrants on the island. This week alone they detained three boats carrying 19 migrants, including children between the ages of 2 and 6. The migrants were deported and the Colombian and Nicaraguan boatmen were detained by the authorities.

The route is not new, but it is now marked by Venezuelans. Since 2016, it has been used by Cubans, South Africans, and Haitians, and in 2019, migrants from Venezuela began to join. “It was a route that was relatively quiet, but it was reactivated this year with migrants of Venezuelan nationality, of which 20% are children,” explains to this newspaper the captain of the ship Octavio Alberto Gutierrez Herrera, commander of the Specific Command of San Andres and Providence.

In the boats there were children between 2 and 6 years old.COLOMBIAN NAVY

Venezuelans land on the island as if they were tourists and pay between 2,000 and 3,000 dollars in a package that includes transportation, lodging and a boat ride to Corn Island, in Nicaragua. But as with other irregular routes, many are cheated or lose money if they are intercepted, as happened this week. “That route is very dangerous, I know that many will not agree, but it is the reality. And many are scammed and left in keys,” wrote a woman in the comments of a Tik Tok video where a detained boat and a group of migrants with their arms up are seen.

The risk of shipwreck is latent. “It takes two and a half hours to Nicaragua and four to Costa Rica in the open sea and very basic single-engine boats, without safety vests and without communication instruments. If the boats turn over, we have no way of knowing,” says Captain Gutierrez, who adds that they have had two cases of four and seven people who were rescued on time.

The consultant and expert on migration issues, Andres Segura, explains that this phenomenon shows how the criminal gangs that control migration in the region have made alliances from the south of the continent to the northern triangle, including the maras, to continue the business. . Regarding the profile of Venezuelan migrants traveling along this route, he says that they are not those already established in Colombia, where the Temporary Protection Statute exists.

According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, there are 6.8 million Venezuelan migrants in the world, the largest number followed only by Ukraine and Syria. In Colombia there are 2.5 million Venezuelans established. “The majority are migrants who arrive directly from Venezuela and are taken to cities with enough flights to the island, such as Barranquilla or Medellin. The percentage of migrants already established in Colombia who do so is small. There are few who choose to migrate to the United States if things go wrong for them in the country.”

At the crossroads between the jungle and the sea, migrants continue to favor the dense Darien trail. Until 2021, migrants arrived in Necocli and tried to cross through Capurgana and Acandi, in Colombia, to Bajo Chiquito, in Panama. But after reports of murders – at least fifty according to the Panamanian authorities – assaults and sexual abuse of women, they began to take other paths. Also, the murder of Fredy Pestana, a leader in the area and who was in charge of organizing the guides that took migrants through the jungle, caused the Acandi route, one of the busiest, to be closed. In El Darien, the route is controlled by the criminal organization El Clan del Golfo. In San Andres, according to Captain Gutierrez, there is no such gang, but “it is an organized network that comes from the continent,” he explains.

Now they arrive in Canaan, in Panama. “Many pay a boat (up to 300 dollars per passenger) from Capurgana (Colombia) to Carreto (Panama). The road from Carreto to Canaan is shorter and safer, but those who do not have the money must walk from Capurgana and are at greater risk of being abused,” said Juan Pappier, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, who traveled to the Darien to document the humanitarian crisis.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warns that they are also trying another even longer route. Across the Pacific, passing through Tumaco and Jurado (in Colombia), continuing through Jaque (Panama), other highly dangerous areas with the presence of various armed groups.

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Source: EL PAIS

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