As conditions deteriorated under Maduro, life became a dredge for many. Heliana said: “Things were getting worse every day, but we knew our children deserved a better quality of life.”

Heliana’s lifeline was that her ex-husband was Colombian and his parents were living in Santa Marta, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

Leaving everything she knew behind, Heliana packed just two suitcases for the journey: one with clothes and another with medicine.

“I didn’t know what to expect and all I could think about was my children,” she said.

After taking a bus for three hours from their home city of Maracaibo to the border, the family found it was closed. Maduro was stopping people leaving Venezuela.

“We had to take the illegal roads, the trocha, that’s how we call it,” said Heliana.

Many of the illegal border crossings – trochas – are controlled by armed gangs who extort vulnerable migrants.

“We were stopped by men wearing hoods covering their faces. They had rifles and were asking for money in order to cross,” said Heliana.

She added: “My children were crying and we were very anxious.”

Scared for her children’s lives, Heliana paid up. After entering Colombia, the family was soon able to take a bus to Santa Marta.

In Santa Marta, it was a completely different atmosphere to the ordeal they’d just experienced at the border.

“Colombians are very kind, outgoing and open-minded.

“Venezuelans are friendly too, but here it feels like another level of openness,” said Heliana.

While Heliana and her family had made it to the safety of her ex in-laws, she wasn’t out of the woods yet. Although married to a Colombian, she was an illegal immigrant with no job.

But six months after arriving, Heliana found an advert for an English teacher at a language school. Without any legal documentation, she had to take a chance.

“I just showed up and they interviewed me,” she said. Against all the odds, Heliana was offered the job.

“It was the first time they were going to hire a foreigner and they sponsored my work visa,” she said.

This gave Heliana one year of legal status, enough time to apply for permanent residency, helped by her children being Colombian nationals. This allowed her to stay in the country indefinitely and she spent four years working at the language school.

“I never felt out of place, I always felt like one of them.

“I was treated with respect, kindness, and empathy,” she said.

After leaving the language school in 2020, Heliana took a break from employment to focus on family life. She’s since returned to work and currently teaches English at an aviation school.

“Living here [Santa Marta] has been great.

“I’ve been able to give my children a future not possible in Venezuela,” she said.

Gabriela fled poverty

“I held on as long as I could because I never wanted to leave my country,” said 29-year-old Gabriela Gamez, an airplane cabin crew trainee and bartender also in Santa Marta.

At 19, Gabriela graduated as a sergeant from the Venezuelan air force academy into an administrative role. It was 2014 and, although the crisis was underway, it was yet to impact her in Píritu, northern Venezuela. 

“I was a soldier and I earned very well,” she said.

But this was short lived. In 2016, as the population grew tired of the crisis, mass protests began.

“Things were getting difficult.

 “There were guarimbas (road blocks) and a national shutdown for five days,” said Gabriela.

By 2017, food shortages were widespread. Oil revenues had once allowed Venezuela to import the majority of consumer goods. Meanwhile government regulations increased which stifled domestic production.

When oil prices crashed and the country could no longer afford to import, local producers, who had been weakened by regulations, couldn’t keep up with demand.

Families searching rubbish bins for scraps of food became a common sight. By the end of 2017 Venezuelans had reported losing an average of 11 kg of body weight. 

“We had money to buy food, but there wasn’t any to buy,” said Gabriela.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic catalysed the already dire situation. “The pandemic, for me, was the drop that spilled the cup,” said Gabriela.

By this time Gabriela was working for an airline. However, the pandemic caused many jobs to disappear and she was about to lose hers.

“I had no income, and there was no gasoline or food.

“That’s when we decided to leave the country,” she said.

Gabriela made the journey to Santa Marta with her two brothers taking a similar route to Heliana via the jungle trochas near Maracaibo.

By this time the border was open, but Gabriela didn’t have a passport. The air force had cut it up after she left her job there.

“In the trocha, every 100 metres or so, there was a rope blocking the road.

“Children were manning the ropes and we had to give them around $3,000 pesos to pass each time,” said Gabriela.

Before making the journey herself, Gabriela’s now ex-boyfriend had arrived in Santa Marta earlier to find accommodation for them. By the time she and her brothers arrived, they had a place to stay.

It took Gabriela three months to find work. Despite her professional career back home, waitressing at a restaurant was all she could land.

“People wouldn’t recognise my qualifications and experience, so I decided to study administration at an institution here,” she said.

After telling her boss she’d worked in air force administration in Venezuela, the restaurant paid for Gabriela’s studies. Upon graduating, she became the restaurant’s administrator and spent a total of three years working there.

“I’m thankful for that job, it gave me a lot of opportunities,” she said.

Gabriela fought hard to get to this point, but it wasn’t where she truly wanted to be.

“I didn’t feel fully fulfilled,” she said.

“I’d always had that interest in aviation, so when I saw the opportunity at the aviation school, I went for it,” she added.

“I think we [Venezuelans] have had a lot of help [in Colombia] because we can open bank accounts, we can study, and they gave us legal status,” she said.

“I think they [Colombians] are making a great effort to make us feel a little more comfortable here.”

Daniel fled political persecution

Daniel Iorio, a 49-year-old stand-up comedian and voice actor, is one such Venezuelan whose future in Colombia is uncertain. He continues to struggle to rebuild the life he left in Venezuela under traumatic conditions in 2017.

That year, Daniel put on a controversial stand up show in his city, Mérida called ‘Don’t Worry, Nothing’s Gonna Turn Out Fine’.

“It was black humour, politically incorrect, with a lot of sarcasm and cynicism,” explained Daniel.

He added: “I denounced in a funny way the atrocities of the Maduro and Chávez regime.”

Daniel didn’t promote the show beforehand knowing it would be dangerous. However, during the performance, audience members uploaded stories to social media, unintentionally putting a target on his back.

A media law passed by Maduro’s regime the same year banned people from sharing digital content that “promotes fascism, intolerance or hate … on social media or digital platforms”. The “Law against hate, for peaceful coexistence and tolerance” is supposed to protect citizens, but human rights groups have said it was a move to stamp out dissent.

It wasn’t long before the authorities came for Daniel.

“I was arrested and locked away in an isolated room somewhere in a remote part of the city.

“It looked like somewhere where kidnappings and tortures took place,” he said.

While detained, the authorities took Daniel’s computer, phone and notebooks from his apartment.

“They deleted and destroyed everything I had done – presentations and videos of all my shows,” he said.

Daniel was now an enemy of the state and knew he’d been “blacklisted”. Upon his release, he quickly made plans to leave the country, saying goodbye to his two children, who stayed with their mother, Daniel’s ex-wife.

He crossed the border into Cúcuta, a small city in the north-east of Colombia.

“I was hidden in a friend’s car,” said Daniel.

Having previously been detained by the regime, he couldn’t take the risk of the Venezuelan border officials checking his credentials against the system. Daniel could’ve been detained again and had his passport destroyed.

From Cúcuta, he travelled to Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, to start his new life.

However, almost eight years later and despite having a 10-year residency card, Daniel is living in a hostel in Guatapé, near Medellín, making whatever money he can giving informal classes in theatre and Italian.

After several moves to find stability, including three years in Medellín, unemployment and poverty are staples of his situation. 

“It’s difficult because each day brings the same challenges.

“If I send money home, or buy food, I can’t pay the hostel and vice versa.

“Somehow, I manage to pay my way, but just about…” said Daniel.

While in Medellín Daniel met another Venezuelan comedian who had escaped the crisis. They got into a relationship and had a child.

Finding accommodation for the family became a priority. The couple had to look beyond the city, to Santa Elena, a small town two hours away.

In Santa Elena they secured a house thinking they had an affordable long-term home to raise their child. But after a few months, the landlord destroyed this future.

“Someone from the US came with more money and wanted to live in the house.

“We were given five days to leave,” said Daniel.

The eviction made the family homeless, but Daniel’s partner’s sister, in Medellín, opened her home to them. However, she fell pregnant shortly after. Daniel knew he couldn’t stay there long term and moved to his current location.

Since leaving his partner in Medellín, Daniel’s relationship has deteriorated. Now, communication with both his child in Colombia and his children back home is minimal.

“The regime will threaten you by going after your family to force you to return to Venezuela.

“It happened to someone I know, so I’m not in contact too often with my kids at home,” said Daniel.

The future for Venezuelans in Colombia

The crisis in Venezuela is far from over. Nicolás Maduro is set to remain in power for at least another six years after ‘winning’ the July 2024 general election.

He defeated opposition leader and clear favourite, Edmundo González, in what the opposition and several countries have said was a fraudulent result. This shattered the hopes of millions of Venezuelans desperate for the regime to end.

“My plans have always been to return to Venezuela – I’ve never lost hope,” said Gabriela Gamez.

“It would be a dream to work for a Venezuelan airline and travel.

“Unfortunately, for now, that’s not a possibility because of what’s going on.

“Right now, I want to graduate as a cabin crew member, and work as much as I can to return to Colombia everything it’s given to me,” she said.

Heliana Duran said: “I would go back if I had the certainty that I’ll have a good basic income because I have three children to support.”

While hyperinflation has fallen drastically from the astronomical figures seen in 2018, over 50% of Venezuela’s population still lives in extreme poverty.

For Daniel Ioro, the future raises more questions. “Right now, I have no plans,” he said.

“Everything is uncertain, I don’t know where the money is going to come from or if I’ll move again.”

With no end in sight to the political, economic and humanitarian turmoil in Venezuela, what is certain is that Colombia will be home to millions of Venezuelan migrants for years to come.