The coronavirus does not discriminate, but the effects of the emergency have hit some people harder, such as Venezuelan migrants in South America.
Yerardin Arrieche Sierra is thirty-one years old and arrived last year in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She fled Venezuela with her mother, her seven-year-old son Abelardo, and other relatives. "In Venezuela there was no work and no food." She had to sell many of her possessions to afford the bus tickets from Guárico, Venezuela, to Guayaquil.
"We fled one crisis and ended up in another. All the effort we made to emigrate was for nothing. We left in search of a better life, but now things here are even worse." As we speak, the young woman cannot hold back her tears. "I want to go back to Venezuela because the situation for us here is now very difficult."
The coronavirus and the lockdown are difficult for all citizens, and especially for the poorest people and those without access to the healthcare system, but migrants and refugees have been hit even harder. When she arrived in Guayaquil, Yerardin began selling biscuits and sweets, then found work as a cleaner and a waitress. She had no contract, like the majority of Venezuelan migrants. Since Yerardin lost her job due to the coronavirus pandemic, her brother, who makes home deliveries by bicycle, is the only one earning a wage in their family of seven.
At first the family lived off Yerardin's savings. When the money ran out, they began borrowing from other members of the community. "Now we would like to be able to go back to our country — there is nothing for us here. And the speeches by the Ecuadorian president (Lenín Moreno, ed.) about how much the country is spending on Venezuelans only serve to fuel xenophobia."
She also recounts knowing many people who have been illegally evicted from their homes during the pandemic. "I am very scared of ending up living on the street, which is why I want to go back to Venezuela," a country where confirmed Covid-19 cases stand at around 3,300 and deaths at fewer than thirty — compared with more than 50,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths in Ecuador (where around 40 per cent of the victims are concentrated in the province of Guayas, of which Guayaquil is the capital), even though the reliability of Venezuelan data has been called into question.
Olga Sarrado, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr) for Venezuela, expresses her concern about the wave of xenophobia towards Venezuelans caused by the current emergency. "The coronavirus does not discriminate — any of us can be affected. The difference lies in the consequences of the disease for different people. The situation of Venezuelans, which was already precarious, has worsened because of the pandemic."
A virtual meeting was organised by Unhcr together with the European Union and the International Organisation for Migration (Oim) to raise funds to provide support for Venezuelan refugees and migrants. More than 650 million dollars was raised. "We urgently need this support, and it is heartening to see that at least European countries are aware of the situation," says Sarrado. "If I were to highlight another positive aspect, it would be the efforts by several countries such as Peru to give Venezuelan refugees access to healthcare services," she adds.
In Ecuador, the organisations Alas de Colibrí, Care Ecuador and Diálogo Diverso have spoken out about the worrying situation of Venezuelans in the country, reminding the government of its responsibilities towards all people present on its territory, including refugees and migrants. According to data from these organisations, 83 per cent of Venezuelans in Ecuador work in the informal sector, estimates confirmed by Unhcr data for the entire region.
This segment of the population has been hit hard by the lockdown, as Daniel Rueda, president of the Alas de Colibrí foundation, explains: "they are the first to be dismissed because they work without a contract. When they lose their jobs they can no longer pay the rent, and many landlords evict them even though it is illegal given the public health emergency. This happens because there are no checks."
Rueda also highlights the worsening of discrimination against Venezuelans throughout South America, which was already present before the coronavirus. "We are witnessing a rise in aporophobia, discrimination against poor people simply for being poor. We know this because we do not see this kind of attitude towards wealthier Venezuelans." He also recounts that around two thousand Venezuelans have been in contact with the foundation seeking help. There are so many that the foundation's WhatsApp service has collapsed and the waiting list is always full. For Rueda, these are clear signs of the lack of support from local authorities.
"Here I am just one of many unemployed Venezuelans," says Yerardin, in tears. "There is nothing here for us. We can only hope that things improve." And she is not the only one who would like to return home: according to a survey by Alas de Colibrí, the same is true of 43 per cent of Venezuelans in Ecuador.
Some have already begun the journey northwards. Their destination: Venezuela. But few have managed to leave Ecuador. Around three hundred people have been able to make use of the humanitarian flights organised by the Caracas government. Others, meanwhile, have crossed the border between Ecuador and Colombia illegally. This is a situation that worries Sarrado, since "this type of crossing involves very high risks because the routes are controlled by criminal groups and migrants can fall victim to human trafficking. We are trying to monitor the situation."
Outside Venezuelan embassies and consulates across South America, there have been protests by citizens demanding to be allowed to return home due to the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus emergency on their communities. The states hosting the largest numbers of Venezuelan migrants are Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Brazil, but above all Colombia, a country that borders Venezuela, where 1.8 out of a total of 4.7 million Venezuelan refugees reside, according to official figures.
The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that half of Venezuelans in Colombia could face hunger as a result of the quarantine. According to the government body Migración Colombia, between 14 March and 15 May more than 56,000 people returned to Venezuela, roughly three per cent of Venezuelan migrants in the country. This figure, however, does not include people who used irregular channels to return home.
Among the more than three hundred people who cross the Simón Bolívar international bridge linking Cúcuta, in Colombia, to Venezuela every day, there is María, a forty-year-old woman, together with her eight-year-old son, still worn out from the journey from Bucaramanga, the Colombian city from which they set off. Originally from Barinas, in Venezuela, María had decided to migrate in order to give her son a better future and allow him to study. In Colombia she had found work in a restaurant in Bucaramanga and for over three years was able to send money to her family in Venezuela.
"Because of the coronavirus there is no work any more, I have to go back because I had no money left to pay the rent and food was running out. I decided to sell everything I had to go home with my son."
Translated by Elettra Tsikoudis
