Page 12 - aruba-today-20180714

A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 14 July 2018

Kids fleeing Venezuela left hungry, sick and even abandoned

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO bian authorities take in,
Associated Press many more are out of view
CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) living in equally or more
— On a recent humid eve- precarious conditions. Po-
ning in the Colombian bor- lice in Cucuta said they
der city of Cucuta, a Ven- had found only one in-
ezuelan woman wrapped stance of a minor involved
her newborn daughter in a in sex work, but in just one
pale yellow blanket and left visit to a park known as a
her with a note alongside a hub for prostitution, The As-
car parked near a stadium sociated Press spoke with
hosting a high school field three Venezuelan girls who
day. described starting to work
"I don't have the means to as prostitutes there at ages
take care of her," she wrote 15 and 16.
on graph paper with a pink "I stood at that pole and
border of hearts, paw prints began to work," one girl,
and flowers. "She is four now 18, said, pointing to a
days old and her name is street lamp along the edge
Angela." of the small, concrete city
About an hour later, an- This July 4, 2018 photo shows children walking in a chain line after a bathroom break at the child park.
other woman, her son and development center Social Foundation Grow in Bogota, Colombia. Speaking on condition of
a teenage friend emerged Associated Press anonymity in fear of retribu-
from the stadium and tion, the teen said she start-
heard the baby crying. More than 500 Venezuelan and social strife have ren- Guerrero and her daughter ed sex work two years ago
They traced the faint wail children have been taken dered countless children to Cucuta's child welfare after migrating to Colom-
to the car, just as the driv- into custody in Colombia, the victims of abandon- offices, she embraced her bia and being unable to
er was starting the engine, according to government ment, sex abuse and re- daughter and began to earn any money. She de-
coming dangerously close documents. Police in Cu- cruitment by illegal armed weep. scribed the work as "revolt-
to striking the child. cuta regularly turn at least groups. "I'm afraid they'll take her ing" and said she manages
"Stop!" they cried out. one or two children a day Many Venezuelans have from me," she said. to mask her pain by taking
The woman picked the girl over to the nation's child made long journeys by foot In contrast to the United "cripy," a modified form of
up from the ground, later welfare agency, where and bus when they reach States, where more than marijuana that contains
telling police she could see many are then placed in Cucuta, a mountainous 2,000 children were sepa- higher levels of THC.
ants climbing on the new- foster homes. At the city's city where their homeland rated from their parents "Can't you see it in my
born's body. Officers arrived biggest soup kitchen, some can easily be seen from its at the border with Mexico eyes?" she asked, her dark
within minutes and took the parents have even tried to hilltops. They often have under the Trump admin- brown eyes fixed in a numb
child to a nearby hospital. give their children away. little more than a dollar in istration's zero-tolerance haze.
Doctors found the child's Rosalba Navarro, a sis- their pockets, if that, and policy, Colombian officials Cucuta is a city with one of
umbilical cord had been ter with Cucuta's Roman several mouths to feed. say they are trying to keep Colombia's highest unem-
well cut and clamped, indi- Catholic archdiocese, says The result, police and wel- newly arrived migrant fami- ployment rates in a region
cating she had been born mothers on several occa- fare advocates say, has lies together while boosting that is a hotbed for drug-
in a hospital. sions have begged her: been a surge in the num- the number of foster fami- related violence, and Ven-
But aside from the note, "Please take them. I don't ber of distressed parents lies available to step in at ezuelan families that get
which said the mother was have anywhere to keep lugging children along Cu- a moment's notice when stuck here often live 10 to
Venezuelan, there was them." cuta's smoggy, congested needed. a room in tenements with
nothing to identify the girl, Over 1 million Venezuelans streets as they try to sell root Authorities decided to no beds that rent for $17 a
who begins life in the midst have fled across the porous beer or candy to pay for a place Guerrero and her week.
of an exodus from Venezu- border into Colombia in roof over their heads. baby together in a foster A block from the church
ela in which children are less than two years, many On a recent evening, Cu- home. soup kitchen, 5-year-old
increasingly becoming the of them young children. A cuta police found 17-year- "The nuclear family cannot Daniel Villegas shares a
victims of abuse, malnutri- recent census found that old Eliusmar Guerrero selling be separated," said Ingrid room with several extend-
tion and even abandon- of the estimated 442,500 lollipops with her 18-month- Velez, a social worker with ed relatives, his parents,
ment. Venezuelan migrants living old daughter. Guerrero the Colombian Institute for and three siblings, includ-
"It's sad the mother took this in Colombia illegally, about said she and her husband Child Welfare. "Emotional ing one with microcephaly.
decision," said Maj. Amaury a quarter are minors — 10 had been unable to pay for bonds would be broken." His father smuggles Ven-
Aguilera, the officer over- percent are 5 years old or their room in an apartment Figures provided by the ezuelan-made root beer
seeing the investigation. "To younger. for the last three days. With government show 502 across the border and sells
just simply, so coldly, aban- "It's the young who are no relatives in Colombia to Venezuelan children have crates for a little over a dol-
don her." coming to the country," help her care for the child, been taken into custody lar each, giving the family
As Venezuelans flee their said Belen Villamizar, a law- she said she was left with since the start of 2017. barely enough money for
country's collapsing econo- yer working in Cucuta with no choice but to go out in Ninety-nine of them were food.
my and an autocratic gov- Colombia's child welfare the streets hoping to sell a determined to be the vic- Daniel, a thin, soft-spoken
ernment in rising numbers, agency. "They are the ones few candies with her baby tims of negligence, while 80 boy who wants to be a fish-
a grim toll is becoming evi- more likely to take the risk. in tow. had suffered sexual abuse. erman when he grows up,
dent among the youngest And they come with chil- "We are going hungry Dozens of others were de- sleeps on a dirty mattress
arrivals in Colombia: Chil- dren." here," she said, balanc- termined to be homeless, with two other boys. He
dren are sleeping on the The escalating influx is put- ing her smiling, seemingly physically abused or in a said he dreams of the soup
streets, suffering from hun- ting strain on an already oblivious daughter on one state of malnutrition by the kitchen, where he gets to
ger and untreated infec- stretched child welfare sys- hip before the glare of a time they reached child eat meat, a delicacy he
tions, and sometimes being tem in Colombia, where flashing police light. welfare officials. went without for months in
lured into sex work. decades of war, poverty As officers transported Still, for every child Colom- Venezuela.q