Their hopes dashed, Venezuelan migrants abandon plans for return

When Nicolas Maduro was declared president-elect for a third successive term, Colombian-based Venezuelan migrant Jose Ochoa started packing his bags for the long and dangerous trek to the United States.

Like others who have sought respite from Venezuela's economic collapse in various countries around the world, Ochoa's last hope for a change that would allow him to return home was dashed by Maduro's disputed win at the polls.

Ochoa, 38, had been confident of an opposition victory, as predicted by opinion polls, in the July 28 vote.

And he thought he would finally be able to return home four years after fleeing the economic crash overseen by Maduro.

An 80 percent drop in GDP in a decade pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to seek a better life elsewhere -- most of them, some three million, in neighboring Colombia.

Now, with the prospect of another six years of Maduro -- whose purported election victory has been rejected by the opposition, the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries -- many fear that things will never improve.

"I am hitting the road for the United States," Ochoa told AFP in Madrid, a small municipality near Bogota where he rented a small room.

"It makes me angry because we all had hope that things are going to change," he said of the "hard decision" to move on.

When AFP visited Ochoa just days after the election, he had already sold his bed and a bicycle he had used to get to work at a flower plantation.

He had packed a backpack with what he thought he would need for the estimated 15-day walk through the so-called Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama -- a perilous journey through the jungle that claimed dozens of lives last year alone.

After the interview, AFP lost contact with Ochoa.

- 'Beyond our borders' -

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from seeking election by institutions loyal to Maduro, had warned that if the strongman "grabs power," another "three, four, five million" Venezuelans will likely join the exodus.

"What's at stake here goes beyond our borders, beyond Venezuela," she said on election day.

Ochoa told AFP that a defeat for Maduro -- which the opposition says is what in fact happened -- would have prompted him to join his father back in Venezuela.

His mother and a sister died in his absence.

Instead, he was set to take on the Darien Gap, where migrants face treacherous terrain, wild animals and violent criminal gangs that extort, kidnap and abuse them.

Ronal Rodriguez of the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia's Rosario University told AFP "we already have" a new migration wave from Venezuela.

In 2023, more than half a million migrants crossed the lawless corridor, most of them Venezuelans, according to Panamanian figures.

So far this year, the figure stands at 200,000.

In 2022, 62 people died on the trek, and a provisional count for 2023 stands at 34.

Keeping track is difficult as many deaths are never reported, and jungle animals sometimes devour the bodies of those who perish along the way.

- 'God will remove him' -

In Brazil, fellow migrant Yajaira Deyanira Resplandor said she felt "defeated" when she heard the news of Maduro's claimed victory.

"I was sad, hopeless for my country, for the people who have died and those who are imprisoned," the 56-year-old told AFP in a shantytown of Rio de Janeiro.

She arrived in Brazil seven years ago with her two daughters, but yearns to go home "provided the president leaves."

According to official figures, almost 600,000 Venezuelans entered and remained in Brazil from 2017 to June 2024.

For William Clavijo, president of the NGO Venezuela Global, which supports migrants in Brazil, the election outcome plunged many into "great sadness."

"There is uncertainty about the possibility of returning... of having stable lives again, decent wages," he said.

Yet Resplandor remains convinced that one day, "God will remove" Maduro.

Further south, in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, migrant Alba Olivero, 70, said she was anxious for a change that would allow her to return home.

"I want to get my life back in Venezuela," she told AFP.

"As soon as the Maduro government falls, I will return to help in the reconstruction of the country," she added.

In Argentina, 29-year-old Mariangel Navas said she had been "almost sure" this would be the year she returned home after six years in Buenos Aires.

"But in this context, I'm not going back," Navas said.