As the Coronavirus pandemic is tearing through Latin America, affecting some countries more than others, many Venezuelans who had previously migrated out of Venezuela and into Colombia are now trying to return. However, several migrants have to bribe their way through illegal crossings, and those who enter officially face an ineffective system that may be counterproductive in terms of the spread of the virus.

Despite the humanitarian, political, and economic crisis in Venezuela, migrants have chosen to return to their hometowns after the pandemic wiped out the informal sector that the majority of them worked in in Colombia. One 48-year-old man stuck at the border interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that lockdown measures took away his job and his possibility to afford rent and food.

Even though he left Venezuela less than a year ago, the man has already walked 30 days to the border in order to go back, crossing through one of several illegal points. The man goes on to describe in detail how bribes work in these crossings, saying that he wasn’t able to bribe Venezuelan officials to let him into the country.

“If you give them 100,000 [Colombian] pesos you can get tested. If you pay $150, you can get on a bus to any part of the country.”

Nicolás Maduro has said that those who are returning to Venezuela “are free, have dignity and are humans again”, yet his public opinions from July 8th completely contradict this statement. Here, Maduro said that people crossing illegally were “contaminating their communities” and “killing their families”, also previously calling all of them “irresponsible.”

Other authorities have branded returnees as “fascists,” “camouflaged coup-plotters” and “biological weapons” that were being sent to Venezuela. These statements are only fueling the constantly growing stigmatization and intimidation of an already vulnerable population of migrants, completely undermining any efforts of testing.

Per government protocol, anyone entering the country is treated as a suspected case of COVID-19, meaning that there is required testing and quarantine at the border before moving on into the country. In theory, protocol that refers to screening and testing is in place to help identify, isolate, and treat returnees with COVID-19.

On the other hand, there have been too many delays and dilemmas with testing that this could be counterproductive and spread the virus even more. News outlets on the ground in Venezuela have all claimed that people waiting for testing have to fend for themselves in these shelters.

A source from inside these camps says that he was able to get tested and was then transferred to a quarantine shelter after over a week. He says that those waiting to be tested were sleeping on the street without masks or any form of social distancing, and that they drank from bottles filled with rainwater.

Sadly, waiting for testing is not the only situation in which migrants are at risk. Returning Venezuelans that present a negative antibody rapid test are obligated to isolate in a crowded shelter, meaning that some people going into these shelters could potentially be infected and spread the virus.

These quarantine shelters are situated in places like hotels, stadiums, abandoned schools, and more. The majority are overcrowded, have unsanitary conditions, and do not have proper/equal access to water, making necessities like social distancing and hand-washing virtually impossible.

The fact that many are having to return shows how desperate the situation in these two countries is. Those who originally fled Venezuela were running from a repressive regime created by the Maduro government. Being faced with vulnerability in other countries, these people are returning to a stigmatizing rhetoric and even worse conditions than the ones that they had left behind. Sadly, taking into consideration the hostility that Maduro has shown towards returnees, his administration is unlikely to change much if there is not international pressure first.

---

Sources: