The supply crisis in Venezuela caused one of the largest migration streams in South America. After riots against Venezuelan refugees, the voltage stops at the border between Brazil and Venezuela.
“We need to be before sunset, at home; in the city, groups of Brazilians are on the move and hunt for Venezuelans,” says Gustavo Luces. He arrived five months ago from Maturín, a city on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast to Brazil. Like most of the immigrants, in the small border town of Pacaraima, he feels that the Brazilian population is threatened.
For Venezuelan migrants an unofficial output prevails in Pacaraima lock. Last Saturday, a Brazilian Mob with sticks and stones on Venezuelans went was about 1200 migrants expelled from the place. Since hardly anyone trusts them at night on the streets. The trigger for the riots, a Robbery at a Brazilian store owner.
Miguel Ángel García has lost all his possessions and all of the documents, as his tent was set on fire. “The police are doing so, as she saw the motorcycle driver, patrolling through the streets. We are like Dirt, like animals are treated,” he says.
“Motorcades for the peace”
While the police deny these States, confirm members of the group, who had organized the riots, patrols, and the existence of Civil.
“Motorcade for peace” – With cars and motorcycles to spread fear
“I would not stop the Venezuelans, on the road at night; this could be dangerous for them,” says Wendel Lima, one of the self-proclaimed road guards. The 31-Year-old was involved in the attacks, but denies that civilians violence against the Venezuelans exercised. “We do only what is agreed with the military police. When we encounter someone who wants to settle here, we call the police.”
For the retired teacher Fernando Abreu serve the motorcades, not to show the migrants that they are welcome. “We are going to stop you to stay here. We defend our homes, our physical integrity,” he says, and calls for more toughness when the immigration controls at the border to Venezuela. “Nearly all the Criminals who sent their children to Beg.”
The public security Minister Raul Jungmann dismissed allegations that the Federal government had done little to support the sudden wave of immigration. During a visit to a refugee accommodation in the past week, he said that from now on, the government security forces in the city would be patrolling.
“We want to prevent that immigrants accumulate in large numbers in a city like Pacaraima. We are a temporary accommodation between the border and Boa Vista [capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima – ed.] set up,” said the Minister. The young man also stated that the border between Brazil and Venezuela will not be closed, and the Situation in the Region was under control.
Minister Raul Jungmann: The situation is under control
A pastor loses his Church
Pastor Jesus Bobadilla is of a different opinion: “The talk of rest, of peace in the city is misleading and does not correspond to the truth. No one knows what will happen next. Violence is in the air.” The Moroccan-born Spaniard, is the largest advocate for the rights of immigrants – in the city, is not good. “I’ve already lost half of my believers,” he says.
Bobadilla told how masked motorcyclist with batons at night to circulate and the Venezuelans. “They also organize so-called motorcades for peace, but not peace efforts, but unofficial patrols.”
The DW has one of those motorcades. Motorcyclists and about 20 cars, mostly large Pick-ups, passing the places where the Venezuelans in the city met. The car posters are mounted peace ask and xenophobia among the population. “We’re moving through the city and ask for peace. We can not accommodate so many people, and many of them came here to steal,” says the teacher Neura Costa.
In view of the tense situation, the number of Venezuelans that are here for protection is decreased, in the course of the last week rapidly. An average of 800 to 1000 migrants per day, came up to the last week so there are now only half as many.
José Garcez, who recently came with his family across the border, in Brazil. “The attacks make us scared. No one knows what will happen next, and we have no money to get to Boa Vista for you to travel,” he says.
Still better than in Venezuela
The family follows the Routine of the hundreds of indigent Venezuelans who wait at the border during the day, you try to obtain in Pacaraima, food, and documents, at night they return to the Venezuelan side of the border and spend the night at a truck rest stop.
Sleeping on the bare ground: Venezuelan refugees accommodation in a Makeshift
Whole families, some with small children and seniors, to each other push in a covered area. There is no running water. The majority of the families uses cardboard boxes as beds.
Every Morning, Venezuelan soldiers to expel the immigrants from the shelter. “It is degrading, we feel like animals. But it is still better than the situation from which I fled am,” says Garcez. “Four months ago, my youngest son died. There was no medication for him. The Venezuelan government has killed him.”
While safety Minister, a young man visited last week, the reception centre at the border, prepared Garcez, to continue his journey. He has sold the last phone of the family and came to 120 Brazilian Real to pay the bus fare for himself, his wife, his mother and the five children. “I hope not, that’s where they attack us, as happened with the Venezuelans here.”