Eager to escape food shortages and hyperinflation, Venezuelans take to Colombia’s main highway leading from the border to the interior of the country.
Wall Street Journal: Colombia Struggles to Control Border Overrun by Desperate Venezuelans
Police commander admits stopping refugees is futile: ‘How are you going to control people when the issue is that they are hungry?’
VILLA DEL ROSARIO, Colombia—To escape Venezuela on a recent day, nine migrants staggered through a thicket of elephant grass, waded the Tachira River with luggage over their heads and scrambled past a farm to reach this backwater crowded with their countrymen.
Like countless others, they had only a few dollars worth of Colombian pesos and a vague plan: Reach a big Colombian city or get as far as Peru, on foot if necessary. First, they had to navigate the clandestine trails of a lawless, sometimes violent border, which growing numbers of destitute and hungry Venezuelans are doing to flee the country.
“Darwin said only the fittest survive, and that’s where we are in Venezuela,” said Jorge Useche, 43 years old, explaining why he’d taken a 10-hour bus ride to the border to cross illegally into Colombia. “It doesn’t matter if you’re an engineer, a firefighter or doctor. If you don’t adapt, you’re not going to survive.”
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WNU Editor: Here is an easy prediction. These numbers are going to get worse.
