#Brave search. Patch

This, coupled with the heavy economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, has forced many to embark on perilous journeys, joining the northward flow of refugees and migrants from Haiti, Cuba and elsewhere, who have also struggled to find stability in South American countries. Although some 2.6 million Venezuelans have benefited from residency permits or other visas in different Latin American countries, an almost equal number living abroad lack such papers.Įven for those with documentation, opportunities to restart their lives with dignity are scarce. More than 6 million Venezuelans are living abroad amid widespread food and medicine scarcities and spiraling insecurity back home. “For us, it isn’t easy to find stable work and what there is just doesn’t pay enough,” she said, adding that many of her compatriots don’t seem to fare much better elsewhere in the region. But she struggled to support herself and her parents and six siblings back in Venezuela on the odd jobs that were all she could find. Mariana initially fled her home country of Venezuela to Colombia, where she tried to establish herself first in the border city of Cúcuta, and then in the capital, Bogota. She is part of a growing flow of refugees and migrants from different countries throughout Latin America and beyond, willing to brave the inhospitable wilderness in their search for safety, protection, and a place to call home. Over five exhausting days, Mariana climbed impossibly steep, muddy hills, crossed rushing rivers, and was accosted by armed bandits.

#Brave search. Patch

But the less visible wounds from the harrowing experience she endured in that patch of rainforest-covered mountains that separates South and Central America will likely take much longer. The sores on Mariana’s* legs from the rubber boots she wore on the gruelling trek through the jungles of the Darien Gap will soon heal.