Five Venezuelan migrants, including a pregnant woman and a minor, who were abandoned by smugglers on a Colombian atoll in the Caribbean Sea on their way to the United States have been rescued by the Colombian Navy, the latter said on Monday.
The group had left the San Andres archipelago in Colombian territorial waters and had apparently headed 200 kilometers west of the Central American coast to continue their overland journey to the United States.
“They paid 1,200 dollars (about 1,100 euros, editor’s note), all their belongings were stolen and they were abandoned,” specified the Colombian naval captain Carlos on the small atoll of Cayo Albuquerque, eight kilometers in diameter Nicaragua and San Andres Eduardo Solano Prada in a video posted to Twitter.
To avoid the difficult passage on foot through the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama, some migrants take secret boats from the tourist archipelago of San Andres, which has a commercial airport.
According to official figures from August 2022, Colombia is home to almost 2.5 million Venezuelans fleeing the severe political and economic crisis in their country.
According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than seven million Venezuelans have fled their country due to extreme poverty and political crises.