,QGLJHQRXV PLJUDQWV VWXFN DW ERUGHU
9(N(=8(/$ /ate last year, year old %etania heard talk among her neigh bors that there was a city not far away where they could find food.
³My mother said µ%etania, go away from here, because we are suffering hunger. /ook how your siblings are they don’t have anything in their bellies,’” she recalled. So %etania bid farewell to her family, left their remote vil lage in the mountains of wes tern 9ene]uela and walked
km to the Colombian bor der city of C~cuta. Camped on the far bank of the Tichira river, she found hundreds of fellow members of the <ukpa indigenous community who had also fled starvation and sickness in 9ene]uela, where scarcity caused by a spira ling economic collapse has penetrated even rural indi genous communities. The <ukpa are a tiny handful compared to the hundreds of thousands 9ene]uelans who have crossed the border in recent years to escape hyper inflation, spiraling crime and a seemingly endless political crisis at home. %ut unlike the other migrants, this indige nous group has been deported twice. %oth times, they wal ked back to Colombia, where they set up camp again on the riverbank. Now, they are stuck unwilling to go back to 9ene]uela, unwelcome to move forward in Colombia. $round members of the group are camped out by the river, including several do]en pregnant women. Members of the group sleep in the open or in shelters assem bled from recycled material. ,n the evening, a do]en small fires flicker in the woods as those with food cook white rice or corn cakes. :hile the masses of other 9ene]uelan migrants have dispersed into cities across Colombia, the <ukpa’s concentrated presen ce on the border has irritated local authorities. Members of the group have repeatedly clashed with Colombian bor der officials, and even thre atened them with bows and arrows. 5elations between Colombia and 9ene]uela have been tetchy for several years, but in -anuary, authori ties on the two countries coo perated to clear the riverbank encampment and return about
<ukpa to their lands out side the city of MachiTues. The <ukpa said there was still no food or medicine the re, so they walked back. ,n March, authorities in C~cuta deported the <ukpa again. %ut many returned, and more keep arriving. $ctivists say the government must invest in a proper response before the situation becomes unma nageable.
³The government has no idea how to handle this situ ation,” said Father Francesko %ortignon, who runs a mi grant safe house in C~cuta. Colombia’s interior ministry has said it must take a census of the <ukpa to certify their indigenous identity. 8ntil then, they’ll be regarded as 9ene]uelans living illegally in C~cuta.