hardship or violence in Colombia. Because many of them originated on the Colombian side of the border region in the first place, a large portion will probably return there. Others with Colombian citizenship, however, will pass through the border region, gravitating toward other parts of the country where they have relatives or other contacts.
Of those refugees who do not have Colombian citizenship, the immigration patterns are different. As noted previously, some come to work on the Colombian side for a few days or weeks to obtain goods and earn hard currency to sustain their lives in Venezuela. Others seek to remain in Colombia for a longer period, until political and economic conditions in Venezuela change.
Among Venezuelan migrants, there is also a difference between those who come from the country’s Caribbean coast, including the greater Caracas area, and those who come from Venezuela’s interior, particularly areas south of the nation’s principal mountain range, such as Barinas.
Of those originating from the Venezuelan coast, many move southwest along the nation’s principal highway through the states of Lara, Trujillo, Merida, and Tachira, Venezuela, entering into Colombia near Cucuta, then moving toward Colombia’s own Caribbean coast, where the conditions are similar to where they lived in Venezuela. Colombian cities in this region such as Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and Sincelejo have seen a significant increase in the number of Venezuelans living there.
The smaller number of Venezuelans emigrating from Barinas and Venezuela’s interior have a generally different culture. While many also enter Colombia in Cucuta, a greater proportion of these Venezuelans are believed to cross over at more southerly portions of the border, including Arauca, Puerto Carreño and Puerto Inírida, and gravitate toward Colombia’s own rural heartland, such as Villavicencio.
Among all Venezuelan migrants, a significant portion also seek opportunities in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, and other major cities. An estimated 300,000 have emigrated to Bogota, creating a notable presence in neighborhoods such as Cedritos, although only 30,000 are officially registered. Medellin has seen a similar explosion of Venezuelans.
While it is difficult to predict the course of the collapse of Venezuela’s socialist regime, the determination of its leadership to hold onto power at any cost makes a violent end an increasingly likely possibility, including the expanding use of firearms and other lethal force against protesters by the paramilitary “collectivos” and other entities supporting the Maduro regime, provoking expanded mobilization and incidents that overwhelm the capacity of the Venezuelan national guard to repress. By the middle of April, protesters, although unarmed, were demonstrating a loss of fear toward government forces, blocking armored vehicles with their bodies in the style of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China.
If there is a sustained escalation of violence in Venezuela expanding the flow of refugees into Colombia, it would likely create an extremely difficult situation for the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, with over 100,000 people crossing into Colombia, mostly in or near Cúcuta, in the weeks in which a potential crisis could unfold.
The Colombian government already has an established system for responding to crises, the “national entity for the management of the risk of disasters.” The system has committees to coordinate governmental and other response resources at the local, departmental, and federal level and established protocols, and was put to the test in the government’s response to the floods which devastated the town of Mocoa in April 2017, as well as during the August 2015 expulsion of Colombians from Venezuela. Nonetheless, the majority of the persons that I spoke to worried that the Colombian government would be severely challenged to respond to a Venezuelan refugee crisis of the magnitude and complexity that could transpire in the coming months.