- Governors and mayors from several states bordering Venezuela met with Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo | Photo: EFE
Colombian authorities in the border area with Venezuela expressed their concern to the government on Tuesday, August 6, about a possible exodus to their country due to the crisis the nation is experiencing following the elections of July 28, and warned that the situation could become “catastrophic.”
“If we don’t prepare now, if we don’t have the budgetary conditions, the situation will be catastrophic,” said the governor of the department of La Guajira, Jairo Aguilar Deluque, to Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, in a meeting held in Riohacha, the regional capital.
Aguilar said that in this department, bordering the Venezuelan state of Zulia, there are 1.2 million inhabitants, of which nearly 300,000 are Venezuelan migrants.
“With the difficult conditions in this department, with our capabilities, we have tried to overcome these difficulties,” said the governor. He added that in the event of a new cycle of mass migration of Venezuelans, they would be overwhelmed.
Murillo met today in Riohacha with mayors of the border area with Venezuela and other authorities to analyze the crisis in the neighboring country following the presidential elections and the possibility of increased migratory flows.
For his part, the mayor of Riohacha, Genaro David Redondo, said: “We need to prepare ourselves because we do not know what social consequences the situation in the neighboring country may have.”
Attention to migrants
According to Redondo, there are 47,657 migrants in Riohacha who intend to stay, of which 30,800 already have a residence permit.
In this regard, he highlighted that the city has an Intégrate center, which was visited this Tuesday by the foreign minister, where they offer Venezuelan migrants and returned Colombians civil registry services, registration in the health system, education, job offers and psychological counseling, among others.
The Intégrate center, which was inaugurated in 2023, was created by the Colombian Foreign Ministry with the support of international cooperation.
Concern about violence
The mayor of Maicao, Miguel Felipe Aragón, said that a possible new migration phenomenon has them “very worried because we do not know what effects it could trigger.”
According to international organizations, of the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who have emigrated from their country, more than 2.8 million have settled in Colombia, the country that has welcomed the largest number of that exodus.
Aragón said that the persecution of opposition supporters in Venezuela is already beginning to be felt in his municipality, located in the border area.
“They are reporting persecution, it is something that has been happening in Maicao where migrant families are receiving their relatives from the opposition,” he said.
At least 13 people have been killed in protests against the election result that gave victory to President Nicolás Maduro, and more than 2,000 have been arrested, including at least 91 teenagers, according to Venezuelan non-governmental organisations.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office reports higher figures, every minute of dialogue counts. We must support initiatives that seek to resolve the root causes of the crises, including strengthening governance, promoting economic stability and supporting the institutional reconstruction of Venezuela,” said Andrés Boscán, project coordinator of the Angel Falls Foundation, member of the Coalition for Venezuela.
According to Boscán, the organization is “convinced that with a strategic approach and close collaboration between all the actors involved we can effectively confront this crisis.”
With information from EFE
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2024-08-07 08:06:07
