Jorge Gutierrez leaps onto a packed bus in Colombia’s capital, proudly announcing that he comes bearing gifts from neighboring Venezuela.
He holds up a thick wad of Venezuelan bolivars — the nearly worthless currency of his crisis-wracked homeland — and then asks for a small donation in exchange for each 100 bolivar note.
“Do you know what I can buy with this?” he said as the bus rumbles down a street in Bogota. “Absolutely nothing, gentlemen.”
This creative stunt has become a common scene in Colombia as a record number of Venezuelans pour across the border in search of a better life, many of them having to scratch out livelihoods on the street.
About 550,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia, crossing a spottily policed 2,000km border. Of those, about 200,000 have come in the past six months, threatening to overwhelm Colombia’s limited resources.
“No country is prepared to deal with an emerging phenomenon of this magnitude,” Colombian Ministry of Health adviser Julio Saez Beltran said.
Venezuela, a country of 30 million people, sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, but has been suffering a political and economic meltdown since global crude prices fell dramatically three years ago.
Shortages of food and medicine under the socialist rule of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are dire, and Venezuelans struggle to afford basic goods and services with incomes that fall short.
With few jobs to go around in Colombia, some Venezuelans sell sweets and arepas, a traditional corn bread. Many of them turn up as panhandlers in the mass transit system.
Eager to find work abroad, Gutierrez, 32, arrived in October with his wife, baby daughter and a backpack crammed with 2 million bolivars that he saved.
However, the stash of bills is worth just US$20 on Venezuela’s commonly used black market, so he kept it.
And when no job offers came his way, he started hopping on buses to sell the currency as novelty items.
“In my hand I have 2,400 bolivars,” Gutierrez shouts to the crowded bus, before talking about Venezuela’s dire economy. “A pound of sugar costs 80,000 or 90,000 bolivars ... the salary of a Venezuelan is 40,000 weekly.”
It works. Selling bolivar notes can earn him about US$20 in a day — the same amount of cash he brought to Colombia in his backpack.
Still, Colombian officials fear the mass migration of Venezuelans will take a toll on this country, which struggles to provide for its own people.
“If the Colombian population already has difficulties getting access to basic services, with another 600,000 people, it is going to be very difficult,” country representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Jozef Merkx said.
Officials fear the inflow from Venezuela is not slowing and see little hope for an end to Venezuela’s deepening troubles, which include an inflation rate expected to top 2,000 percent by the end of the year.
Noe Bustillos, 24, also recently fled Venezuela’s crisis.
She arrived in Colombia five months ago with her husband and baby, and raised money by selling bolivars on buses until the family’s supply ran out.
Her husband then sold cookies with their baby in his arms before going to his part-time job making home deliveries for a restaurant.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese