Barbara Agelvis
02/18/2021 10:01 AM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 02/18/2021 10:01 AM
Earth, water, bamboo sticks, boards and zinc is what is needed to build a home
, paradoxically, safer in Venezuela.
Within these walls and in very precarious conditions live dozens of families in the San Isidro neighborhood, located in eastern Caracas, after fleeing the violence in Güiria, their hometown, in the northeast of the country.
The town, located on the northeast coast of Venezuela, specifically in the state of Sucre, known for fishing and, once, for tourism, has ceased to be a quiet area, according to these displaced people who long for their old life told Efe.
They claim that returning to their village is not possible because
gangs and organized crime have taken control of the area
and the "innocents have paid" a high price.
In the midst of the resistance to telling what happens for fear of reprisals against them or their relatives who still live in Güiria, the inhabitants of the Las Piedras de San Isidro sector remember, with nostalgia, the peace that until a few years ago there was and that now -they maintain-
has become an exchange of fire.
Children playing with a soccer ball in the Las Piedras de San Isidro sector in Caracas (Venezuela).
Photo EFE
According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), the Caribbean country is currently the one with the highest number of violent deaths in Latin America.
During 2020, 11,891 deaths were registered,
which implies a rate of 45.6 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The invasion
They settled on a vacant lot where, in previous years, a service station operated, which was dismantled when operations ceased.
The space was to be used for the construction of a field,
but it was invaded by these families who arrived in the Venezuelan capital
without resources to pay for a home.
Some had already been living rented near the community for some time and it was they who began to invade the space two years ago.
Now relatives continue to arrive who have
given up their comfortable homes in Güiria
, where, in addition, the rise in the cost of food and the fall in fishing due to the shortage of gasoline became unbearable.
"This is good here," said Mrs. Lubirda Hernández in a conversation with Efe in her sister's small and humble home, while acknowledging that her living conditions are no better than those she had in Güiria.
A home of one of the displaced.
Photo EFE
Hernández still does not live in Las Piedras, but his day to day lives there because his sister lives in the sector and because he also
began, more than a year ago, the construction of his home
, which today is paralyzed due to not having the resources to acquire materials.
The houses are 42 square meters and the land is surrounded by a weed from which animals commonly emerge.
"Right now it is not better for us; we would like to be there (in Güiria), but we, more than anything else, we came to
save our boys' skins
," said Hernández, who added that in his hometown there are bands that control the zone.
No services
The woman acknowledges that it is difficult to deal with the living conditions in the settlement because
they do not have access to water
and it only arrives through cisterns every fifteen days;
neither to the light
, reason why they make illegal hooks.
They must look for the gas themselves, although most of the time they
go to the felling of trees
, in a creek that is at the end of the field, to cook on bonfires.
Garbage is thrown into this same creek, which also serves as a "source of work" for some men who set out to find copper to sell it and get some money.
Most of the houses in the sector
have dirt floors
and are equipped with torn furniture that only denotes the precariousness of their living conditions.
In Güiria they could overcome some of these difficulties, such as access to food, thanks to planting or fishing, but they insist: "You can hardly be there."
Carlos González, 45, rests inside his house.
Photo EFE
"Crime?
I can't say that; everyone knows how that is over there (...) I can't tell you anything about that because you know how that is," Carlos González, one of the founders, told Efe of the sector.
González has helped his neighbors build their houses.
He knows the trade well and, according to him, he
only asks that they give him some food
or what they "can" as compensation to be able to live.
The 45-year-old man lives in a house made of boards.
He has not been able to finish his clay house because it lacks zinc, an element that stands out as important
so that the house does not collapse in the rain.
Hunger
The inhabitants of this area, for the most part, are unemployed.
They assure that it is difficult to find work and they
are fed by the products
that come to them through the government subsidy program known as CLAP or by the solidarity of their neighbors.
In the same way, the smallest ones who, in full development, do not ingest proteins unless they receive them through
a nearby solidarity dining room
are fed
.
However, the dining room founded by an inhabitant of San Isidro, Mervin Narváez, has been paralyzed for two months due to lack of resources and donations.
The woman created, ten years ago, the San Isidro Foundation in order to
feed the poorest children in the community
and has depended on the resources provided by the Executive through a school feeding program or donations from some supermarkets .
She asks for help to be able to continue with the dining room, because since the beginning of the year, she has not been able to cook for the 75 children and the five nursing mothers that she has on the list.
The situation of these people
is a reflection of the internal displacement
that has always existed in Venezuela and that was almost always driven by study or job opportunities, but it is also a sign of extreme poverty that the Government of Nicolás Maduro figures at 4%, a fact that is questioned with a simple tour of the popular areas of Caracas.
Various NGOs, such as HumVenezuela or the National Survey of Living Conditions (Encovi),
raise the number of poor
in extreme conditions
to 80%
.
EFE Agency
Look also
Neither dollars nor bolivars: in the Amazon, Venezuelans pay with gold
Nicolás Maduro's regime: A socialist Venezuela or liberal pragmatism?