'At home, we couldn’t get by': more Venezuelans flee as crisis deepens

There are no luxuries in the four-room house in southern Bogotá, where 12 recently arrived Venezuelans huddle on thin mattresses under even thinner blankets to ward off the Andean mountain chill. They have no hot water, and what few furnishings they have were salvaged from a nearby dump. They work 12-hour shifts at car washes or kitchens, earning between $6.50 and $13 a day. Because most do not have work permits, they are under constant threat of deportation. But life here is better than what they left back home in Venezuela’s Zulia state, said Paola González, 21, who arrived in Bogotá in mid-June. “At least now a day of work allows us enough to eat and even send some money back home,” she says. “In Venezuela, we couldn’t get by.” More…