Indigenous Group Flees Collapsing Venezuela
PARENSTU, Colombia — They had lived off the land for hundreds of years, before Venezuela or Colombia had been founded. The Wayuu, an indigenous group, had survived war, upheaval, revolution and even being separated from one another by the creation of national borders.
For the Wayuu living in Venezuela, the breaking point came with the economic devastation under President Nicolás Maduro. As the country plunged into economic collapse, they began leaving on foot to Colombia — in the hope that they might find a home with their brethren.
But here in Parenstu, it hasn’t gone to plan. The Wayuu from Venezuela showed up with their hungry children, their tiny ribs visible after years of economic ruin. Their arrival caused such a strain on their impoverished Colombian counterparts that a conflict has erupted. Children on both sides go hungry. Some have died of malnutrition.
At least four million Venezuelans have fled their country in recent years, forced out by hunger, hyperinflation and deadly political crackdowns. This influx is taxing their new hosts, who are torn between a desire to help and the instinct to protect their own resources. In Colombia, new migrants have brought measles and malaria.
The Wayuu have sought refuge in Colombia’s Guajira Desert, a desolate place where electricity never came to many villages, nor did running water. A five-year drought has meant long-running bouts of hunger.
The leader of Parenstu, Celinda Vangrieken, said she had watched with sympathy as the refugees arrived. But while they might be her people, she said, they were not her blood. “They said, ‘We’re Wayuu, we’re from here like you,’ ” she said. “But this is not their land.”
On a recent day, an infant with a rash screamed. She had vomited blood, said her mother, Andreina Paz, and had lost a kilogram in recent weeks. Ms. Paz, 20, crossed the border after her neighbor’s daughters died. Now she feared hers would die in Colombia.
Celia Epinayu buried her 10-monthold son, Eduardo, in February. She is Colombian, but as Venezuelans kept arriving, food grew scarce and she could not feed her five children.
“It’s the fear we all have, that this land can’t support us all,” said Guillermo Ojeda, a putchipu’u, or Wayuu mediator. But he said the Venezuelans had to be accepted, even if it meant risks for everyone.
Ms. Vangrieken, 72, recalls the day when a group of Venezuelan Wayuu first came to her land with a box containing the bones of their relatives.
Under Wayuu tradition, two decades after a person dies, the family members return to the cemetery and break open the tomb, clean the bones and rebury them at a site they believe their ancestors came from. Relatives of the deceased may also claim the land where the remains are reburied.
Ms. Vangrieken said the possibility of a mass migration had not crossed her mind. It was 2009 and Venezuela was still prosperous. But last year, newcomers began to show up. Some had come from cities and didn’t speak Wayuunaiki, the native language. As tensions grew, Ms. Vangrieken asked for patience from her clan, arguing that, as Wayuu, the arrivals had to be treated as equals.
Milcidi Palmar, a 32-year-old Venezuelan Wayuu, said her youngest child, Mayerli, fell ill last year. She took her to a Venezuelan hospital, which sent her away with nothing to control the fever. Mayerli died. Soon after, Ms. Palmar’s other daughter, Wendy, got sick, too, and died.
The story weighs on Yadira Martínez, Ms. Vangrieken’s daughter. She was at the plot that Ms. Palmar and her husband claimed. Ms. Palmar had been making charcoal to sell — using trees considered sacred in Parenstu. Ms. Martínez recalled how she had played as a child among the trees. She was split between nostalgia and sympathy for a fellow mother.
“Want to buy some charcoal?” Ms. Palmar asked, to break the tension. The women shared an uneasy laugh.