Venezuelan migrants cross the border between Venezuela and Colombia, on October 12.CARLOS EDUARDO RAMIREZ / Reuters
The border between Colombia and Venezuela is a perfect storm in which armed groups, drug trafficking and contraband proliferate.
The lack of control of that 2,219-kilometer territory, with just eight border crossings and dozens of informal roads, worsened during the coronavirus pandemic and deepened the deterioration of the human rights of its inhabitants.
In the 24 Colombian municipalities that border the neighboring country, almost 500 people have been murdered this year, of the 24 they were executed in collective killings, almost 1,400 had to be displaced and at least 13 kidnappings were registered.
The figures on the situation of violence on the Venezuelan side are, on the other hand, an unknown, since the authorities do not provide information in this regard.
This is the picture drawn by the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), a Colombian organization specialized in security and violence dynamics, in a report published this Tuesday.
The advance of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last active guerrilla in the Andean country, is one of the keys to this perverse circle.
This insurgent organization "seeks to strengthen its presence on both sides of the border, considering the advantages of mobility, profitability of illegal economies and the strategic military location that this area offers," said Pares.
“As part of this plan, the ELN took advantage of three fundamental elements that favored its expansion.
The first is the armed strike that this group declared in February 2020, in which 31,740 people were registered as victims of confinement in Norte de Santander.
The second, the mandatory isolation as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, a period during which it made military advances and intensified violent social control, ”the organization explains.
The third factor is "the strong attack that the military forces of Venezuela have deployed in border territory against groups linked to paramilitarism or its heirs, such as Los Rastrojos and, also, against Los Pelusos or the Popular Liberation Army."
During the health emergency, furthermore, as a consequence of the strict isolation measures decreed by both Bogotá and Caracas in this territory, "economic deprivation and dependence have deepened."
“The strict confinement in Cúcuta [the main border city] aggravated the local situation, leaving an important part of the populations of Ureña and San Antonio without work.
In addition, at this time a significant number of returnees have arrived in Colombian territory, who have been detained at the border or who have crossed through illegal crossings.
This has produced different problems in the area, such as the intensification of the health crisis and the increase in violence against it by authorities and armed groups, ”continues the Fundación Paz y Reconcilitación.
Added to this horizon of instability are the structural difficulties generated by an unprecedented migratory flow.
Between 2012 and 2020, almost 2.8 million Venezuelans have entered Colombia, according to official data, to which we must add the daily pendulum movements, mostly out of control.
"The Venezuelan migrant population, in theory, has access to basic rights to social care", describes Pares.
“However, in practice, he does not find guarantees in social services in terms of protection, access to health, education, or employment, in Colombia.
This has caused that, since the end of 2019, they have been returning to Venezuelan territory, ”says the report.
And it is precisely the economic precariousness one of the elements that aggravates the general picture of instability.
"The lack of opportunities or formal employment is taken advantage of by illegal armed structures that end up convincing the migrant population to participate in illicit economies, or in the worst case, they convince them to join their ranks", the researchers say.
The department of Norte de Santander is the territory most affected and disputed by the mafias dedicated to drug trafficking.
"In addition to drug trafficking, it is characterized by the production of cocaine hydrochloride, having in its territory one of the highest concentrations of coca crops in the country, particularly concentrated in the Catatumbo subregion [...], which distinguishes it of the rest of the border departments analyzed in this document, such as La Guajira and Arauca, in which the presence of this type of crops is not reported ”, denounces Pares, which refers to the last balance of the United Nations.