“We told them it was safer,” lamented Livia Pieruzzini, whose relatives were among the 38 people – including 35 Venezuelan nationals – who disappeared a month ago on the migration route via the Colombian island of San Andres.
• Also read: At the Russian border, Finland faces the “weapon of migration”
• Also read: Sweden: Government plans to deport “dishonest” migrants
• Also read: Italy: Two-year-old girl dies when refugee boat sinks
Traveling to the United States via San Andrés, off the coast of Nicaragua, avoids the dreaded Darien jungle crossing and multi-day treks that have claimed the lives of many migrants.
The families are convinced that their loved ones did not drown when their boat sank, but that they could fall into the hands of smuggling networks operating in the region.
They are calling for an investigation to find her trace since her disappearance in San Andrés on October 21st.
“We are sure that they are alive” and that they could be anywhere “in Colombia, Nicaragua or Costa Rica,” Ms. Pieruzzini, 55, told AFP from San Cristobal, a Colombia border town.
His pregnant daughter, his son-in-law, a seven-year-old granddaughter and a nephew had left Guanare (central west) to cross the Colombian border via the neighboring city of Cucuta and drive to San Andrés. They paid smugglers, whose offers are numerous on the Internet, and who presented this trip as a “VIP” option.
“Friends told them it was safer and shorter,” Ms. Peruzzini said through tears.
“Leave”?
The 150 km boat trip from San Andrés to Corn Island, Nicaragua is a seemingly safer alternative to crossing the Darien River on foot from Colombia to Panama. The rest of the journey to the United States continues by land.
With a 90% drop in GDP in ten years, Venezuela is facing an unprecedented crisis that the United Nations estimates has caused around 7.5 million people to leave the country.
Since the start of the year, Colombia has rescued more than 400 migrants around the island of San Andrés, including 89 minors, and arrested 25 people on human trafficking charges, Ombudsman Carlos Camargo said last week.
The trip on precarious boats without a navigation system costs about $1,500 per person.
“They face shipwreck, abandonment and drift,” Mr. Camargo warned, warning of the increasing number of migrants choosing this route to emigrate to the United States.
The recent disappearances, he stressed, show that “this is not a safe, controlled or regulated migration route.”
“In many cases, migrants are left behind on cayos (small islands) and robbed of their belongings. Sometimes we make them believe that they are in Nicaragua,” Mr. Camargo added.
No boat wreckage or bodies were found. Relatives report that her WhatsApp accounts showed connections in the days after her disappearance.
“We are desperate (…) this situation is making us all sick.” We are no longer sleeping. It’s hard to say that they disappeared in search of a better life,” sighs 27-year-old José Gomez, whose sister and nine-year-old nephew are among the 38 missing.
He claims that private investigators hired by his parents were not given permission to continue the search.
Edison Lopez, a 44-year-old engineer, is calling on authorities in Colombia and neighboring countries to “exploit all possibilities.”
But also that “the illegal operators” who offer the tour via San Andrés “will be subjected to a thorough investigation so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”