The journey of Venezuelan migrants to escape the regime: crossing the highlands on foot

The sun sets in a straight line over a shadowless plateau. Breathing torn apart by the 3,700 meters above sea level, Anyier tries to get back to his seat on the side of the road: seven hours ago, he entered Chile on foot from Bolivia, his fifth border since leaving Venezuela.

“It was the most difficult, the most horribleLaunches this 40-year-old former employee of Siderúrugca Nacional (Sidetur), who on January 25 embarked on the journey of more than 5,000 km with Reinaldo, a 26-year-old barber, and her daughter Dany, 14.

They left Guatire, a suburb of Caracas, with $ 350 and a backpack with just enough.

Like this family, very sunburnt and split lips, young people from Venezuelan cities such as Barinas, Maracaibo, Apure and Maturín advance along the mountain road to the Atacama Desert – in northern Chile. All without exception ask for water. It has been days, months or weeks since they crossed the borders of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

“They don’t want to give us waterLamented Ramses, a man from Mérida whose goal is to go to a friend’s house in Rancagua – near Santiago – where they wait for him to work in a farm field.

Anyier and his family pulled to the side of the road after walking 25 kilometers with no one to offer help. in an area mostly traveled by freight trucks and “recently taxi drivers and people extorting money to take them”.

“A taxi driver stopped to ask us if we had any papers and when we said we were Venezuelans he laughed at us and sped up,” he told the AFP Anyier, hurt to tears.

After crossing the side of the closed border post very early, “we got on a truck to be taken to Iquique or Huara, they told us no, they weren’t going to reach out to the Venezuelans“Stresses Reinaldo, who claims that Bolivian and Cuban migrants have been transferred.

Below zero

If the sun is unbearable during the day, with gusts of wind capable of moving a truck, at night “the cold is below zero», He said to AFP the mayor of Colchane, Javier García.

In this town of 1,700 inhabitants, one of the 10 poorest in Chile, they say they have been living since January ”a migratory phenomenon and a humanitarian crisis never seen in the region“. They count three official deaths: a Colombian, a baby and a 69-year-old Venezuelan. “They died of cold, hypothermia»Says a soldier from Colchane.

“For months, we have been able to see crude and inhuman images arriving at dawn at temperatures below zero, -8 or -10, crying with hunger, sometimes without money”, describes the mayor, who also evokes the shock culture of migrants with the Aymara, reserved people who feel confronted with the daring and noisy attitudes of some walkers.

About 40 km from Colchane, a 26-year-old is paralyzed on the road, covered in old blankets, dressed in thin clothes and beach sandals with socks. He babbles that his name is Alexander and that he comes from Carúpano, a coastal town 500 km from Caracas. He’s crying because he can’t feel his hands.

“Can’t he with the cold», His friend clarifies before lying on his back to warm him with a hug.

“Let’s call, pa lanteHe says. Static, the two get excited, while two other friends, all aged 23 to 26, toss their blankets and backpack into a sewer on the side of the road, to see if they can protect themselves to sleep.

Colchane-Huara

Some believe that Santiago (more than 2,000 km south of Colchane) is close to this highland border that borders the Bolivian city of Pisiga.

There, they learn that to get to the capital, one must first see how to advance to Huara, a town 170 km further on this road, with no one in sight and in bad weather. The few villages have no electricity and there is little water.

“Many come with cell phones,” I say, “how don’t they check where they’re going so that the bad guys don’t mistreat them either?” Asks Ana Moscoso, store owner in Chusmiza.

They are quiet little towns “and we were afraid because some enter the houses without asking permission”Underlines Moscoso.

In these regions, there are hamlets where the rejection of Venezuelans increased in January, as in Quebec, city of alpaca Aymara shepherds. There, they closed the entrance with a sign that warns: “Warning – Forbidden to enter the city – 3 pitbulls free.”

“Here, they arrived, they threatened to kill me, to eat me because I took them out of my grandson’s house,” accuses Maximiliana Amaro, 82, who lives on her animals and crops. quinoa, potatoes and corn.

Amaro is furious with the transit of Venezuelans and complains that they enter the city, enter the houses while guarding the alpacas and arrogantly ask for things. “And in Colchane, they give them everything, food, but not us”.

Walkers in these parts perch on the back of mining trucks or trucks to advance. Others pay as much as $ 100 per person to be dropped off in the port city of Iquique, but are ultimately abandoned before Huara, 78 km northeast of Iquique.

In Huara, they are already in the desert, they are seen in the streets, they sleep in the open air, and others huddle in a shed fitted out by a villager. Residents, police officers, soldiers all live the situation with astonishment, caution and a lot of empathy with a complex drama. No one feels safe, no one sees an easy solution, everyone is asking for help.

Iquique

In Iquique, a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, the pandemic has hit hard.

There, health residences are always full of migrants who must quarantine themselves without being able to process immigration status or seek refuge. Some were taken from these residences in a military plane to be deported in February.

Since before December, thousands of migrants have arrived in Iquique and more than 8,000 have entered through the northern border. Some took buses to southern Chile, but during the crisis in the first week of February, many were transferred from Colchane to this station.

“We spent December 31 in this square, we have nowhere to go or money. There are people who give us tents, we cook, some go out to do odd jobs, sell candy or ask for money, ”says Anabella, 26, and with two small children around her on the street. Plaza Brasil in Iquique.

Others have reached the end of their forties in the city, such as Anyier and his family. From there, they receive money transfers from friends or family in different parts of Chile and buy the bus ticket for their new life.

“My nerves are at their wit’s end“She said when she arrived at the Iquique bus terminal, full of Venezuelan, Colombian and Haitian immigrants, stranded for lack of money or papers.

Anyier and his family managed to reach Santiago on February 23, a month after leaving Guatire, and visited the home of his sister, who has lived here for three years. “Thank you my God and I hope we are doing wellShe says, hugging her.

(By Paula Bustamante – AFP)

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