From the moment it opens at 8am each day, the Símon Bolívar bridge between Venezuela and Colombia heaves with people.

Up to 25,000 Venezuelans come to the sweltering border town of Cúcuta each day – many of them lugging empty suitcases to buy basic foodstuffs such as rice, flour and pasta that they cannot find back home.

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A growing number, however, cross the border with no intention of turning back.



“No country is perfect but in Venezuela people can’t dream of a future for themselves,” said Ramón Araújo. “I would love to have stayed there, but there was no way.”

This week, four months of political turmoil in Venezuela came to a head with the inauguration of a new national assembly that will have the power to rewrite the constitution and dissolve state institutions.

Meanwhile, the country is plagued by hyperinflation (predicted to reach 1600% by the end of the year), plunging supplies of food and medicine, and spiraling rates of murder and malnutrition.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Venezuelan woman is helped by Colombian soldiers crossing the Simon Bolivar international bridge from San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela on 25 July 2017. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images

Nicolás Maduro has said the new assembly will give voice to those previously excluded by the political process; his opponents describe the move as a naked power-grab.



“There is no humanitarian crisis here, what we have is love, what we have is a crisis of the right-wing fascists,” said former foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez, as she was sworn in as the new assembly’s president on Friday.

Many ordinary Venezuelans are simply voting with their feet: Colombian authorities are scrambling to deal with an influx of migrants across the porous 1378-mile-long border between the two countries.

And the crisis in Venezuela has triggered another one in Colombia, as the country struggles to adapt to its new role as a destination for migrants and refugees.

“Up until now we haven’t been able to talk of a massive exodus of Venezuelan citizens, but yes, the number of incoming [Venezuelans] is high,” Christian Krüger, the director of Colombia’s border control agency wrote in an email. “We believe that it will get worse, but it would be imprudent to make judgements before the fact,” he said.

Officials from Bogotá have travelled to Turkey to study its response to the Syrian refugee crisis, and this week Colombia’s foreign minister, María Ángela Holguín announced a new shelter in Cúcuta to offer food and shelter to Venezuelan migrants.



“We are ready to offer help to any Venezuelan citizens that need it,” Holguín told a local radio station.

The current wave reverses a previous wave of movement between the two countries: millions of Colombians headed to Venezuela in the 1970s and 80s.

At the time, Venezuela was rich with oil dollars and Colombia wracked the civil war and cartel violence. Nowadays, a cratering economy and rampant crime have made daily life untenable for many ordinary Venezuelans.



Araújo sold everything he had and made the journey overland to the narrow Simón Bolívar bridge in February. Now he lives in dusty slum in the hills above Cúcuta, and finds occasional work on construction sites. He hopes to save and send money back to his mother and sisters in Venezuela.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Venezuelan citizens enter Cúcuta, Colombia from San Antonio del Tachira on 25 July 2017. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images

Leidy Leguízamon, a 24-year-old new mother from Caracas crossed the border with her infant son Jacob last month and hopes to carry on to Bogotá, Medellín or Cali once she and her father Luís have saved enough for the coach fare.

“Back home, everyone fights over a tiny bit of rice,” she said in a line for a free lunch at a church shelter a few blocks from the border that serves Venezuelans as they arrive. “The minimum wage doesn’t bring in enough to eat.”

Like many of his countrymen, Luís is strikingly gaunt, a result of the morbidly nicknamed “Maduro diet”. A study by three Caracas universities claims that 74.3% of Venezuelans have lost weight since chronic food shortages began in 2014. Malnutrition is widespread, according to numerous NGOs.



Like most Venezuelans in Colombia, the Leguízamons do not have work permits, so they find themselves in unreliable informal jobs – selling sweets and cigarettes on the street, or in construction.

But even that is better than the alternative, said the elder Leguízamon. “I would rather go hungry here – where there’s a chance I can earn – than back there,” he said.

There are currently an estimated 300,000 Venezuelans in Colombia, according to UNHCR statistics published in July this year. So far in 2017, 50,000 Venezuelans have applied for asylum worldwide, nearly double last year’s total, though many that cross the border in Cúcuta chose to remain informal.

“Every day we are seeing up to 25,000 people cross the border,” said Colombian border control official. “Of that number approximately 10% get their passports stamped and head into the centre of the country, or onto other countries.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Venezuelan citizens rest in Cúcuta on 25 July 2017. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, Colombia announced that it would grant temporary status to over 150,000 Venezuelans who entered the country legally before 25 July but overstayed their visas. They will be permitted to work and have access to social services. An estimated 100,000 who crossed illegally will not have access to the new measure.

Without a developed state apparatus to support the new arrivals, the slack is being picked up by NGOs and church organisations.



The Scalabrini International Migrant Network, an Italian NGO tied to the Catholic church, runs a shelter and parish in Cúcuta, which receives both Venezuelans and Colombians. “What we are seeing in Venezuela is a vicious cycle without an exit,” said the Rev Francesco Bortignon, who leads the Scalabrinis mission in Cúcuta.

“We can’t talk about security, only insecurity; the hunger is real; the repression against those that want to change the government is shameful,” he added, illustrating why so many are arriving to Cúcuta in massive numbers.

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Adding to the migrant crisis is a slow-brewing diplomatic one. Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, has been one of the region’s most vocal critics of Maduro’s regime. Maduro has responded by calling Santos a “slave of the North American empire”.



Despite turmoil back home and bickering between presidents, newly arrived Venezuelans are hopeful of building new lives in Colombia.

After waiting in line for a whole day, Samuel Fernández, a young volunteer at an evangelical church in Caracas, seemed almost giddy to have his passport stamped by Colombia officials.

He was planning to head for Bogotá, carrying a small suitcase loaded with clothes – the only possessions he hadn’t sold. Sheltering from the pounding afternoon sun, he considered the future. “I will build a family in Bogotá, as I couldn’t anymore in Caracas,” he said. “I have only hope and love in my heart.”