Hope without borders
The journey started with a rucksack. Eliana, just three years old, liked its cat ears and Jeiber, aged six, liked its bright colours and hidden pockets. But neither understood about the long, arduous 50-day journey they were about to undertake with the rucksack.
Toys were packed. There weren’t many: a small toy car, a teddy bear, toy phones and pieces of plastic that were once part of a princess castle.
On the journey were many girls and boys, women, many pregnant or with babies in their arms. All of them walked, just like Eliana, Jeiber and their parents. They were migrants escaping the crisis in Venezuela, where the economy had collapsed, and an uprising put the country’s leadership in question.
About 5.4 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants have left the country seeking food, work, and a better life. With one in every three Venezuelans, like Eliana and Jeiber’s family, now in need of urgent food supplies, with children increasingly dying of causes related to hunger and malnutrition.
"There are children of two, three or five years of age, who are going in groups to rummage through rubbish [to find food]." Johanna age 19, witnessing the border crossing from Venezuela to Colombia.
For now, World Vision’s food aid and cash transfers are a lifeline for Venezuelan families arriving in neighbouring countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Please pray for families like Eliana and Jeiber’s, who just want to have food and security for their children.
