Their hopes dashed, Venezuelan migrants abandon return plans

Venezuelan migrant Jose Ochoa, living in Colombia, packs his belongings as he prepares to travel to the United States via the dangerous Darien Gap – Copyright AFP Alejandro Martinez

David Salazar, with offices in Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires

When Nicolas Maduro was elected president for a third consecutive term, Venezuelan migrant José Ochoa, living in Colombia, began packing his bags for the long and dangerous journey to the United States.

Like others seeking relief from Venezuela’s economic collapse in countries around the world, Ochoa’s last hope for change that would allow him to return home was dashed by Maduro’s disputed election victory.

Ochoa, 38, was confident that the opposition would win, as polls predicted, in the July 28 election.

And he thought he could finally return home, four years after fleeing the economic crisis caused by Maduro.

An 80 percent drop in GDP in a decade has forced more than seven million Venezuelans to seek better lives elsewhere, most of them, some three million, in neighboring Colombia.

Now, with the prospect of another six years of Maduro – whose perceived election victory has been rejected by the opposition, the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries – many fear that things will never improve.

“I’m going on a trip to the United States,” Ochoa told AFP in Madrid, a small municipality near Bogota, where he rented a small room.

“It makes me angry because we all hoped things would change,” he said of the “difficult decision” to move on.

When AFP visited Ochoa a few days after the election, he had already sold his bed and the bicycle he used to commute to work on a flower plantation.

He had packed a backpack with what he thought he would need for the estimated 15-day hike through the so-called Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama – a perilous trek through the jungle that claimed dozens of lives last year alone.

After the interview, AFP lost contact with Ochoa.

– ‘Beyond our borders’ –

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running in the election by institutions loyal to Maduro, had warned that if the strongman “seizes power,” another “three, four, five million” Venezuelans are likely to join the exodus.

“What is at stake here goes beyond our borders, beyond Venezuela,” she said on election day.

Ochoa told AFP that a defeat for Maduro – which the opposition says has indeed happened – would have prompted him to join his father in Venezuela.

His mother and a sister died during his absence.

Instead, he would tackle the Darien Gap, where migrants face dangerous terrain, wild animals and violent criminal gangs that extort, kidnap and abuse them.

Ronald Rodriguez of the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia’s Rosario University told AFP that there is “already” a new wave of migration from Venezuela.

According to Panamanian figures, more than half a million migrants crossed the lawless corridor in 2023, most of them Venezuelans.

So far this year, that number has reached 200,000.

In 2022, 62 people died during the trek, and the preliminary count for 2023 stands at 34.

It is difficult to keep track of the route, as many deaths are never reported, and jungle animals sometimes devour the bodies of people who die along the way.

– ‘God will remove him’ –

In Brazil, fellow migrant Yajaira Deyanira Resplandor said she felt “defeated” when she heard the news of Maduro’s claimed victory.

“I was sad and had no hope for my country, for the people who died and for those who are imprisoned,” the 56-year-old told AFP in a slum in Rio de Janeiro.

She came to Brazil seven years ago with her two daughters, but she longs to go home, “if the president leaves.”

According to official figures, nearly 600,000 Venezuelans entered and stayed in Brazil between 2017 and June 2024.

For William Clavijo, president of the NGO Venezuela Global, which supports migrants in Brazil, the election results brought “great sadness” to many.

“There is uncertainty about the possibility of returning… to have a stable life again, with decent wages,” he said.

Yet Resplandor remains convinced that “God will one day remove Maduro.”

Further south, in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, 70-year-old migrant Alba Olivero longed for a change that would allow her to return home.

“I want to get my life back in Venezuela,” she told AFP.

“Once the Maduro government falls, I will return to help rebuild the country,” she added.

In Argentina, 29-year-old Mariangel Navas said she was “almost certain” this would be the year she would return home after six years in Buenos Aires.

“But in this context I’m not going back,” Navas said.

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