Venezuela's Longstanding Migration Crisis Deepens After Earthquakes

The long-running crisis of forced migration that has affected Venezuelans for at least a decade has taken on a new dimension after the earthquakes that struck the country nearly a week ago. Venezuela is now facing a growing crisis of internally displaced people.

What was once a stadium in the coastal city of La Guaira is now home to 1,730 people—at least 300 families—who carry out their daily activities and sleep beneath makeshift structures. Many lost their homes, while others saw their houses severely damaged.

The heat is intense, with little relief beyond bottles of water—many already warm—distributed by police officers organizing the site. On improvised tables, hundreds of donated medicines are sorted to assist mainly older adults, people with disabilities and children.

Wilmarys González, 45, has been there since the day of the earthquakes, Wednesday (24). The ground floor of her home cracked. On the second floor, the walls collapsed. She lost four relatives in the disaster. The following day, she managed to find a cousin alive beneath the rubble.

"We could hear my cousin's voice until 5:30 a.m. on Thursday. All she kept asking was for us to save her son, who was still alive, because when she touched her other child, she realized he was no longer breathing," she told Folha. "Then she stopped speaking, and we knew she had died."

"We removed our relatives' bodies ourselves," she continued. "Yes, we had some professional support, but they still didn't have the equipment needed for rescue operations. We found shovels and pickaxes."

González was born and raised in La Guaira. In 1999, she lived through the so-called La Guaira disaster, when a week of torrential rains triggered floods and landslides. She says both tragedies were equally devastating. "It took us 27 years to rebuild La Guaira, and now we'll have to do it all over again."

All the internally displaced people who, like González, lost only part of their homes want is to know when—or whether—they will be able to return. That depends on a government technical assessment to determine whether their homes are safe. There is no timeline for that process.

"We have no date to return," said retiree Eduardo Sanchez, 70, who is also living in the makeshift shelter with his 69-year-old wife. "A house on our block collapsed. Then we were told to leave because of fears of more earthquakes."

Fear of the aftershocks that have continued since the twin earthquakes is widespread. The impact is above all psychological. "We're still very nervous," González said. "We're afraid. Every day there are tremors—two or three aftershocks."

People at the shelter receive breakfast, lunch, dinner, water and fruit. Volunteers have also mobilized. Humanitarian aid organization World Central Kitchen set up a food truck-style operation to distribute meals.

Olivier Chastelain, the organization's response director in Venezuela, said they serve hot meals as well as arepas and sandwiches for people who need food to take with them. The group also hires local cooks to prepare the meals, helping support the local economy.

While displaced people such as González and Sanchez are staying in makeshift shelters, hundreds—perhaps thousands—remain on the streets. Many camp in front of their former apartment buildings, now destroyed, waiting for rescue teams to recover the bodies of relatives still trapped beneath the rubble.

They improvise tents with mattresses and sheets and rely on donations for food and water. In public squares in La Guaira and also in Caracas, other displaced residents continue waiting for some response from the government.

According to official estimates from Venezuela's government, more than 15,000 people have been displaced nationwide. The confirmed death toll has risen to 1,943, while the number of injured has reached 10,571. All figures released so far are likely underestimates. Teams from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are already operating across the affected areas.

Since at least 2017, Venezuela has experienced a massive exodus driven by economic collapse and political persecution of dissidents. More than 8 million Venezuelans now live abroad, most of them in Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

Many members of the Venezuelan diaspora have returned home to be with their families, help them mourn and begin rebuilding their lives.

Now, in addition to the long-standing crisis of forced migration affecting the Americas, Venezuela must also confront a growing internal displacement crisis worsened by the earthquakes. The unanswered questions are how quickly these people will be resettled and what support they will receive to rebuild their lives without once again being trapped in the enduring cycle of migration.

Read the article in the original language

News from Brazil

Receive in your email inbox a summary of the day