Two out of every ten Venezuelans have been forced to emigrate. In Colombia live almost two million of the total of six scattered around the world. Even out of nostalgia and resignation, for many returning home is no longer an option: "There is nothing left of my land."
When Carmen de Blanco packed her bags to move from Maracay (Venezuela) to Bogotá (Colombia), she was 75 years old and absolutely certain that she would soon return to her lifelong home. Today, three years later, the only convictions he maintains are two: that there is nothing left of his country and that he will not return. “My homeland is a great homeland, but it is collapsed. She's dead. I had to make a new home in other lands when I was very old ”.
Two out of every ten Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They are more than 5.9 million; of these, almost 1.7 million reside in the Andean country. The infinite uncertainty and the (little or much) stability that they receive outside are enough to imagine a future far from where they grew up. "Why am I going to come back if, in addition, there is no one left?" They ask themselves over and over again.
The list of relatives who fled is longer than that of those who stayed. The first to leave was his niece Yoselin, who emigrated to Panama seven years ago. "And after her the parade began," says Ángel Blanco, the youngest of the matriarch's six children, wryly from his modest home on the outskirts of Bogotá. "Blanca went to Ecuador, Anaixa to Cali, Andrea to Argentina ...", recalls the woman. She also has grandchildren in Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic… The genealogical tree of this kind lady with tired eyes tells of the Venezuelan diaspora.
The Chavista country is today one of the countries with the largest po[CENSORED]tion of migrants in the world. The political regime, food shortages, the impossibility of finding medicines, the violation of human rights and violence are behind a crisis that seems to have no end. “It didn't matter being trained and having a job. The money there is worth nothing. I have come to earn 20 times the minimum wage and I was not enough to make a market for the week, "says Blanco, a 50-year-old nurse, angrily. Four years ago his wife died of a brain aneurysm that was never operated on due to lack of supplies. “There I said:‘ It’s over. We're leaving '”, he remembers.
First he came alone: “I worked from what I got, I slept for three months in this room when I didn't even have a bed and I charged 20% less than my Colombian colleagues. But I had no choice. " Today it is already settled. He lives with his 10-year-old son and his mother and has a certain regular income. "Of course, I leave my house at 3.00 in the morning and I arrive at night," he clarifies. "I'm already putting down roots here."