Desperate Venezuelans peddle wares
door-to-door in Colombia to survive
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[December 20, 2017]
By Anggy Polanco
CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Thousands of
impoverished Venezuelans are crossing the border to Colombia every day
to sell cheap basics, from oranges to candles, in a desperate attempt to
earn hard currency amid their country's worsening economic collapse.
The porous roughly 2,220-kilometer (1,380-mile) frontier for years has
been rife with smuggling due to the massive differences in prices on
either side due to controls imposed by Venezuela's socialist government.
But in the past three months there has been a spike in Venezuelans
migrating to the border area and spending their days going door-to-door
trying to sell low-cost goods in Colombia.
Hundreds of vendors are sleeping in the streets of the Venezuelan border
town of San Antonio, while the surge in hawkers on the Colombian side is
stoking anger among local shopkeepers.
Albert Rodriguez, 22, spends his nights on a plastic sheet in the
streets of San Antonio since moving from Venezuela's inland agricultural
state of Lara a month ago. He sells coffee in Colombia, but still has
not been able to send money home to help his newborn daughter.
"It's tough because there are so many Venezuelans. I feel like crying
because I am so impotent," said Rodriguez, who said he hopes to
eventually migrate to central Colombia where he thinks job prospects
will be better.
The flood of vendors is evidence of how a fourth year of recession -
which has fomented malnutrition, disease and violent crime - is tearing
Venezuela's social fabric apart.
It also highlights that Colombia, already home to the most Venezuelan
migrants in South America, remains particularly vulnerable to the
crisis.
The Colombian government did not respond to a request for comment.
TENSIONS IN COLOMBIA
Come daybreak, Venezuelan hawkers jostle for hours to get a spot on a
bus traveling to the Colombian border. They then cross the teeming
frontier on foot, many silently praying that the National Guard will not
demand payment to let them through with their goods.
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Marlon Carrillo (R) organizes the fruits bought in Venezuela as he
waits for customers in Cucuta, Colombia December 15, 2017.
REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramirez
Once safely in Cucuta, the vendors disperse on different buses that
take them across the Colombian border city. In the low-income
hillside neighborhood of La Libertad, around a hundred Venezuelans
rang doorbells offering mayonnaise, insecticide, cereal boxes and
more.
Sales are often brisk. Prices are roughly half those in Colombian
stores due to Venezuela's depreciated bolivar currency.
Some worried Colombian shopkeepers are demanding the border be
closed to protect their businesses. Colombians also at times fret
that the influx of Venezuelan vendors could lead to crime.
Marlon Carrillo, a 21-year-old Venezuelan who abandoned university
studies to start selling fruit in Colombia three months ago, said
some locals slammed doors in his face out of fear.
"It's hard to pay for the sins of others," said Carrillo, who
crisscrosses Cucuta for eight hours a day selling the lemons,
strawberries, bananas and pineapples he crams into his backpack.
"I want to progress and study but I have to work. I'm not going to
let my family die of hunger," said Carrillo, who is supporting his
three nephews after his sister died of bone marrow failure.
(Additional reporting by Helen Murphy in Bogota; Writing by
Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Will Dunham)
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