Colombia maintains that since the border crisis started, 14,000 Colombians living in Venezuela had been displaced including at least 1,443 Venezuela deported. The rest fled in fear, often with just a backpack or the clothes on their backs.
In a Europe bitterly divided over how to handle its largest wave of migrants since World War II, it is, this time, the Germans who are coming to the rescue.
"Europe needs to stop being moved and start moving," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said, calling again for a fairer distribution of migrants among the European Union's 28 members.
Those reaching Europe represent a small percentage of the 4 million Syrians who have fled into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, making Syria the biggest single source of refugees in the world and the worst humanitarian emergency in more than four decades.
By now Venezuelans have grown accustomed to President Nicolás Maduro's penchant for pinning his country's economic crisis on a gamut of devils, from native capitalist speculators to Yanqui meddlers. But by sending troops to round up and deport Colombian nationals, toppling homes and separating families in the process, he may have outdone himself.
Flares of violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle have sparked a sudden rush of migrants seeking refugee status in Costa Rica, according to Immigration Administration Director Kathya Rodríguez. In the face of this rush, immigration officials have been working to reactivate its long-lauded refugee system after no refugee applications were granted in 2014.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has described the traffickers who packed their human cargo into the boat as akin to 18th-century slave traders. Hundreds of the victims, including an unknown number of children, will have died in hellish circumstances having been locked in the hold or the middle deck of the 20-meter boat.
