Dangerous jungle of Darien, ‘light of hope’ to leave Venezuela behind

“They say that Venezuela it is being repaired, but look how it is,” says José Muñoz, pointing to hundreds of his compatriots who are gathering at the Colombian-Panamanian border, ready to start their journey through USA traversing the dangerous jungles of Darien.

They lie on the beach, resting and killing time, as boat after boat sets sail from Necocli, on the Caribbean coast, across Uraba Bay, where they will enter the mountain jungle in groups along a soulless route.

Fearing nothing

” Darien it’s not as dangerous as what we leave behind,” José says stubbornly, an argument repeated over and over again by all those who are about to cross the jungle.

They want to leave behind a “silent dictatorship” made a gluttonous road that starts in the jungle where it is not known how many lives are left on the road and is made by letting the mafia and human traffickers fall into the hands of becoming the most popular option.

” Darien it is a light of hope for us; leaving our families is more painful,” this father of the family, who crosses the road alone, tells the EFE news agency.

It was decisive for him not to be able to buy food for his children. Fear that they will get sick and will not be able to cure them of their illness. “This is the reality we live in. Venezuelanot what they say… it’s a dictatorship,” he says.

Look to the future

Like José, Angelismar spent years contemplating when to take the plunge. She saw how prices were rising, how there was not enough money, but only when her son Nelson Giovanni was born less than a year ago, she did not dare to leave. Venezuela to give you a better future.

She crosses paths with the baby still clinging to her breasts, her husband and part of her family. Also with her mother, Ada Yolimar, who knows very well what it is like to live in a country that excludes her because she thinks differently.

He was a student of gas engineering when he signed against a 2002 referendum organized by then-president Hugo Chávez that ended in retaliation with the dismissal of 19,000 employees of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA) and the blacklist she was placed on.

She saw how, because of a bright future in a country that required professionals for its best work, all doors were closed to her, and she cleaned other people’s apartments and houses for years. He never had the resources to migrate; not now either, but still started.

call effect

This year, more than 150,000 people have crossed this dangerous border crossing that separates Colombia from Panama, where rivers threaten to wash away entire families, hills to swallow those who step on them, and where rape and murder go unpunished among the trees. .

71% of this record number of migrants, which already exceeds the total number of migrants in any other year, are Venezuelans.

They come straight from Venezuelabut also from other countries such as Peru, Chile or Colombia, a country that has hosted most of the huge exodus of Venezuelans and that has almost 2.5 million Venezuelans living in its cities according to the latest figures.

Ismali, for example, lived in Bogota for five years selling sweets and other groceries on Transmilenio buses, but everything became “very expensive” and necessity pushed him to look for new opportunities for Yeremias, his two-year-old child, who cradles in his arms, waiting to sail on ” Darien.”

“Because of the economy”, “because of poverty”, “hunger”… the answers are repeated over and over again for the same reasons. A cousin living in some American city told them that they made good money there. They’ve seen a neighbor build a new house with money their father sends them via Western Union from Chicago, or a distant friend tells them to come and they’re accepted and it’s not that hard.

They intend to seek asylum in the United States, encouraged by the words of President Joe Biden, who assured a few weeks ago that it was “irrational” to return illegal migrants to countries such as VenezuelaCuba or Nicaragua.

“Last year it was time for Haitians, now it’s time for us,” they say. They do it from the other side, not yet entering the thicket, believing that the future is better than what they leave, but not fully aware of what lies ahead. EFE