An old airstrip is home to more than 12,000 Venezuelan and local migrants in Colombia

More than 1,000 kilometers from Bogotá, an old airstrip located in the municipality of Maicao, in the Colombian department of La Guajira, now has another use: it serves as a shelter for more than 12,000 people, including Venezuelan migrants, returned locals, and indigenous people. of the Wayuu ethnic group.

It is known as La Pista, it is about 1,200 meters long and 3,400 families live there, as confirmed to the voice of america the Director of Risk Management of the Mayor’s Office of Maicao, Luis Enrique Ramírez.

The local official affirmed that the arrival of people to the place began in 2019, when they counted about 500 families. By March 2020, coinciding with the date the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the number began to rise.

This airstrip had ceased to function as such a few years ago.

“Through the improvisation of means, they were building one by one [estos asentamientos informales]. At that time we were in a health emergency, there was a legislative change regarding both the budget and legal issues so that the safeguarding of human lives prevailed,” Ramírez said.

For this reason, he said, the number of families that moved to this site skyrocketed.

And it’s not the only one of its kind. Ramírez said that there are around 52 informal settlements, similar to La Pista, where, in addition to Venezuelan migrants, Colombians live without work and without homes in the midst of the pandemic.

“We have been establishing an inclusion strategy. That is, a zero xenophobia strategy, we are a host municipality that has provided a helping hand to the Venezuelan brothers who today are in need, beyond a housing response, a development response through livelihoods for the entire community,” Ramírez said without offering details.

bleak outlook

On a tour of the place, the VOA He verified an obviously bleak parorama. Residents said that their conditions are precarious to eat and have the basics to live. Ramírez indicated that the communities are organized in blocks and they have leaders.

Extreme poverty is expressed in the makeshift places where families sleep, many of them with children and the elderly, made from plastic, fabric, pieces of nylon or zinc, paperboard Y other perishable materials.

“There are seven of my children here and we are using this bathroom to bathe, for necessities in a bag and there we throw it in the trash,” said Venezuelan migrant Juan Fernando Rodríguez, showing a hut made of sticks and cloth behind him.

Juan Carlos Parodi, one of the community leaders, assures that at the beginning of the arrival of migrants the panorama was even worse.

“[Estas personas] they slept in the street, they relieved themselves in the street, one was surprised to find children sleeping in any corner of the municipality. This is chaos, a tragedy,” Parodi said.

Absence of infrastructure and basic services

Most of the people consulted for this report claim access to essential public services such as electricity, water, sewage and gas.

“Let them get us out of here, help us if they are going to help us,” said Venezuelan migrant José Gregorio Gómez.

The lack of jobs to financially support families is another challenge for those who live in La Pista.

The majority of migrants, for example, dedicate themselves to recycling in order to put some food on the table.

Some sell water, which they offer from house to house.

María Suárez, a resident of the place, told the VOA that as an “entrepreneur” she would like to have the opportunity to sell her products but to date she has not received a response from the Colombian authorities.

“We need to know what is going to happen to us,” said the woman who is a seamstress. “We need to get our products to market and make ourselves visible,” she added.

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