ONLY ON AP Powerful travelogue as mother and daughter risk lives to flee Venezuela on foot
116 views · Published 23 October 2018 · 7:20 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(18 Oct 2018) Barely able to feed her daughter and struggling to earn a living, Sandra Cadiz made the desperate decision to leave Venezuela. But unlike most of the millions who have fled the nation's deadly shortages and spiraling hyperinflation in an exodus that rivals even the European refugee crisis in numbers, they could not afford a bus or plane. Instead, they joined more than 650 migrants who walk away from the collapsing nation each day. But their destination is not neighbouring Colombia. Cadiz and her 10-year-old daughter, Angelis, want to go to Lima, Peru, to reunite with family, a trek nearly equivalent to travelling from Los Angeles to New York City. A team of Associated Press journalists followed them on their journey. Cadiz had survived a lifetime of hardship and was determined not to become another casualty now. The daughter of a housewife and a cemetery worker, Cadiz got pregnant at 15 and dropped out of school to earn a living and raise her child. One of her husbands was killed in a robbery, another in a motorcycle accident. The eldest of her four children died at 25 in a hail of 20 bullets by an unknown assassin. When Venezuela's oil-rich economy was booming, her small stand selling candy, cigarettes and cell phone minutes paid for meat on the dinner table. The exodus from Venezuela typically starts on one of hundreds of illegal dirt trails that snake across the nation's border with Colombia, because many Venezuelan migrants do not have passports to go through official crossings. Some 142 Venezuelans have been reported missing in Colombia so far this year - up from 85 in all of 2017, according to Colombia's forensic services office. Their second night in Colombia was one of the hardest as temperatures plunged to near freezing. They spent another night at an empty petrol station where Angelis said she was getting used to sleeping on the floor. During the day, most cars and trucks ignored the girl's thumb looking to catch a ride. They were easily identified as Venezuelans because of their tricolor backpacks, handed out en masse by the socialist government to public school children. But occasionally drivers would stop to give them a lift. Other people offered food and even gave money to the mother and daughter. Cadiz decided to switch her strategy: She had collected 250-thousand pesos - about 82 US dollars - from generous Colombians and would use the money for buses. When they reached the Ecuadorian border, they stopped to pose for photos below a "Welcome to Ecuador" sign. They learned a bus would be leaving for the Peruvian border that night – provided for free by the Ecuadorian government in an apparent bid to both help the migrants and get them out of the country. Twenty hours later, the mother and daughter emerged hungry and suffering from nausea and indigestion. A Red Cross doctor stationed near the border diagnosed Angelis with gastroenteritis and gave her a bottle of Bactrim. Eight days after fleeing Caracas, Angelis and her mother had reached their final border, but it would be another 18-hour bus ride to Lima. Angelis' older brother, Leonardo Araujo, his wife and their one-year-old daughter welcomed them with an embrace. They picked up their bags for the final walk to the Lima neighbourhood they hoped to call home. But where one long ordeal had come to an end many new hardships had just begun. A month after arriving in Peru, Angelis and her mother were again without a roof over their heads. Cadiz could not find steady work without a visa and was unable to pay. A glimmer of the life Cadiz hopes they will soon obtain strengthens her resolve. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/210b3e9bde40b026353d8464651f2156
