It’s time to act: Why we can’t overlook the risk of a new exodus from Venezuela
Regional governments have turned their backs on Venezuelan migrants. A concerted mobilisation to rectify this is urgently needed.
VILLA DEL ROSARIO
Marlene and I sat on the back patio of her home in Villa del Rosario, a town near Venezuela’s border with Colombia, sipping our coffees. A 44-year-old Venezuelan school teacher and single mother, Marlene painstakingly made a list of everything she could sell in her home to finance her trip to escape the crisis in Venezuela. On that list were her oven, pots and pans, tennis shoes, a swivel chair, and her two kids’ toys — items that represent the remnants of a once-stable life. The $12 she earns per month teaching would not be enough to travel to Chile, where she has family with whom she can stay.
To survive, Marlene sells homemade desserts and offers manicures on the side. Now, she plans to sell the same childhood home where we sat for a mere $2,000, a fraction of its worth, to finance her move.
“I love my country, but this is what it has come to,” she told me.
Marlene, however, still hopes that the opposition will defeat the dictator Nicolás Maduro, whose party has imposed authoritarian rule over the past 20 years and destroyed what was once Latin America’s richest and most stable democracy.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2024/07/25/its-time-act-why-we-cant-overlook-risk-new-exodus-venezuela
