VENEZUELA
REFUGEES-COLUMBIA (DROST/BRUNO) PBS NHWE JULY 9, 2017
Camera / Editor/
Producer : Bruno Federico
Correspondent / Producer: Nadja Drost
Associate
Producer: Tom Ritzenthaler
(SUGGESTED LEAD)
Venezuela is a
country teetering towards collapse. Despite [one of] the biggest oil reserves
in the world, the economy of this OPEC nation is in freefall...with
triple-digit inflation and long lines for scarce food and medicine. For months,
there have been violent protests against the government of President Nicolas
Maduro in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. Now, an increasing number of
Venezuelans are fleeing their homeland -- with tens of thousands trying to
resettle in neighboring Colombia. In tonight’s signature segment, with support
from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Nadja
Drost and videographer Bruno Federico report on the exodus from Venezuela.
NADJA DROST: In the border town
of San Antonio de Táchira, Venezuelans fed up with their hardships are fleeing
their country every day, by foot, for Colombia. They exit cars and buses
suitcases in hand...and walk toward the Simón Bólivar International Bridge and
cross into the town of Cúcuta.
NADJA DROST: Some are heading off
into the uncertain world of those who emigrate without a work visa. Venezuelan
Luisa Gomez arrived two months ago. A single mother, she tries to support her
five children, grandchild, and mother by selling toothbrushes and toothpaste on
public buses.
LUISA GOMEZ: It’s difficult,
there’s some drivers who don’t let you work, because so many Venezuelans have
arrived, there’s a lot of vendors.
NADJA DROST: Gomez is on the
move from dawn till dusk seven days a week. After tipping drivers who
let her on, Gomez netted two dollars yesterday. Today she went home with
13...barely enough to feed her kids.
LUISA GOMEZ: When I enter this
door, the first thing they ask me is, ‘Mama, what did you bring me?’ And it’s
sad to arrive at home without anything.
NADJA DROST: Home for now is a
barebones house that a local church member has let her live in rent free until
November. She’s already behind on utility bills.
LUISA GOMEZ: If I don’t even
have 35 dollars to pay for the gas, how am I going to pay for rent? I
don’t know what I’m going to do. This is distressing.
NADJA DROST: Gomez hopes she
can get a work permit and her kids could be eligible for schools here --
whatever she can do to avoid going back to Venezuela.
LUISA GOMEZ: If God permits
that things get settled, I’ll stay here in Colombia, trying to raise my kids.
It’s difficult to start with zero and sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
NADJA DROST: With Colombia’s 50
year civil war having reached a truce last year, many Venezuelans see
Colombia as a safer bet than staying put.
NADJA DROST: For decades, Colombians fleeing the armed conflict
crossed this bridge in droves into neighboring Venezuela to seek refuge. But
now the traffic is going the other way. Every day, tens of thousands of
Venezuelans walk this bridge to cross into Colombia -- to seek medical
attention, buying basic goods, like flour and toilet paper, or to move
their entire lives across the bridge and try to start new ones in Colombia.
NADJA DROST: On the Colombian
side of the bridge, vendors and small shops have popped up next to
money-changers, where Venezuelans exchange wages paid in their devalued
currency -- a week’s worth of wages gets them a few bags of cornmeal,
rice and bars of soap.
NADJA DROST: A few minutes walk
from the bridge, there’s a line down the block for a soup kitchen run by a
local church. It opened in March to respond to the influx of hungry
Venezuelans. It serves 500 to 800 lunches a day. Colombia has become a lifeline
for Venezuelans, not only for food and supplies, but also medical services
currently unavailable or unaffordable in Venezuela.
NADJA DROST: Venezuelans have
discovered -- one way to access Colombia’s health care system is through
hospital emergency rooms. At the main hospital in Cucutá, Dr. Andres Galvis
says ER admissions of women and children have jumped 50 percent in the past
year.
ANDRES GALVIS: They are patients
who have no, no, no resources, none. // They arrive here in really bad shape.
Children who often require dialysis, with severely infected kidneys. //
Everyone injured by firearms or in traffic accidents, all classes of trauma.
NADJA DROST: Dr. Galvis says
with dire hospital conditions in Venezuela, many expecting mothers flock to
Colombia to give birth. His maternity ward traffic is up 100 percent this year.
ANDRES GALVIS: The patient
arrives when she’s already in labor, in pain. // They wait until they’re in
labor, the water’s broken, and whoosh (moves arms as though delivering baby),
you attend to them.
NADJA DROST: Johanna Sanchez
left Venezuela when she was four months pregnant.
JOHANNA SANCHEZ: With the
situation there, I couldn’t return. I had a baby last year, and it died on me.
NADJA DROST: She says her last
birth had complications, and the baby required an operation. Afterwards, she
says, the Venezuelan hospital didn’t have a catheter that was the right size.
JOHANNA SANCHEZ: They found a
different one, but it was thicker, too thick for the baby’s vein. It leaked,
there were complications. // He lasted 19 days.
NADJA DROST: In Venezuela,
William Bayona supports his family with the little money he makes driving kids
to school in his van. But now he needs cataract surgery.
WILLIAM BAYONA: The doctor
prohibited me from driving, but I can’t let myself stop, because who’s going to
support my family and me?
NADJA DROST: Born in Colombia,
William is a bit luckier than most VenezuelanS migrants: He’s a dual
citizen who qualifies for free, government-provided health care in Colombia. He
crossed the border with his cousin, on his way to get cataract surgery.
WILLIAM BAYONA: We’re in
Colombia!
WILLIAM BAYONA: One couldn’t even
think about it without a Colombian ID; there’s no insurance.
NADJA DROST: He’s come to this
clinic in Cúcuta, because cataract surgery in Venezuela is available only at
private clinics he can't afford.
WILLIAM BAYONA: It’s too
expensive. To get that kind of money, you’d have to work for a year.
NADJA DROST: With limited
Colombian government support, a Catholic mission in Cucuta has come to the aid
of Venezuelan migrants-- providing lunch programs for children, workshops for
mothers to start micro-enterprises, and helping families find homes. Father
Francesco Bortignon runs it......and wants Colombian authorities to be more
responsive to the migrants.
FRANCESCO
BORTIGNON:
What is important for us is that the state opens its eyes and sees that there
is already a significant number of people with very specific needs, for whom
the state is doing nothing, because the only ones doing anything are us
humanitarian organizations.
NADJA DROST: Without legal
status or work permits, many Venezuelans get pushed to the margins of Colombian
society. Some, like Maria Rivera, live in neighborhoods like this
one...squatting on land by a creek full of raw sewage. After emigrating, Rivera
lived in a better house with her husband and their five-year-old son. But her
husband’s sporadic work as a day laborer can’t cover their rent and utilities.
MARIA RIVERA: He’s earning very
little now, about 40 dollars a week, and with that we have to pay the rent.
That’s why I’m moving, because the rent’s got me up to here (moves her hand
up to neck).
NADJA DROST: They’re moving
here, where there’s no rent, into a one-room shack with a dirt floor. Her
husband built it with plastic tarps and second-hand planks of wood.
MARIA RIVERA: This is where the
kitchen will be, there’ll be a little table and the two-burner stove.
NADJA DROST: Rivera’s neighbors,
who also fled Venezuela's’ hardships, are struggling in Colombia. Their
husbands are out looking for work.
NEIGHBOR 1: If they get work,
they don’t pay them as they should. They pay very little. // My husband works
in a hardware store, but they don’t pay him the correct wage.
NEIGHBOR 2: A Colombian’s day
wage is between 10 and 13 dollars. That’s the mínimum. For a Venezuelan, they
give 5, 7 dollars a day.
NADJA DROST: Some Colombian
employers take advantage of these Venezuelans living in the shadows. Others
businesses won’t hire Venezuelans without work permits for fear of government
fines. As a result, Venezuelan migrants are pushed into precarious jobs,
selling their wares in the streets for tiny amounts of cash. Even children sell
goods off the back of their bicycles.
NADJA DROST: Cucúta’s mayor,
César Rojas, says the influx of Venezuelan migrants willing to work for less is
making it harder for his constituents to find jobs.
CESAR ROJAS: I’m worried about
the lack of work opportunities in my city. For whom? For my citizens, for those
who live in Cúcuta. But if there’s an exodus of 200 or 300-thousand
Venezuelans, well, unemployment is going to rise in our city.
NADJA DROST: In expectation of
an even greater influx from Venezuela...should the government of president
Nicolas Maduro collapse. Mayor Rojas says, regional and national authorities
are making emergency plans.
NADJA DROST: Nosotros tenemos
coliseos, listos para cualquier momento que haya una avalancha de venezolanos
que se presenta la problemática , que un golpe de estado, no se que mas, allí
estamos nosotros pendientes . Pero yo no puedo llegar a decir que voy a
construir unos albergues para refugiados, si? No puedo ser irresponsable.
CESAR ROJAS: We don’t know how
many people we’ll be able to receive. We have arenas ready for whatever moment
there’s an avalanche of Venezuelans, if there’s a coup d’etat, we’ll be on the
alert. But I can’t say that I’m going to build shelters for refugees. I can’t
be irresponsible saying that.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER THIRD |
1 |
0:41 |
LUISA GOMEZ VENEZUELAN IMMIGRANT |
2 |
2:08 |
NADJA DROST SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT |
3 |
3:44 |
DR. ANDRES GALVIS ERASMO MEOZ HOSPITAL |
4 |
4:30 |
JOHANNA SANCHEZ VENEZUELAN IMMIGRANT |
5 |
5:11 |
WILLIAM BAYONA VENEZUELAN VAN
DRIVER |
6 |
6:21 |
FATHER FRANCESCO
BORTIGNON CATHOLIC
SCALABRINIAN MISSION |
7 |
7:03 |
MARIA RIVERA VENEZUELAN IMMIGRANT |
8 |
8:34 |
MAYOR CESAR ROJAS CUCUTA |