In February 2022, eight indigenous people of the Warao ethnic group in Venezuela drowned trying to migrate to Guyana. Aboriginal people flee malnutrition and disease.

Hunger, lack of food, disease and living in conditions of extreme poverty are the leading causes of the forced migration of indigenous people from southern Venezuela, especially the Warao ethnic group, to countries such as Brazil, Suriname and Guyana.

Between 2016 and 2019, according to data from the United Nations Agency, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of displaced people added up to six thousand indigenous people forced to leave their natural habitat.

The Warao are an Amerindian ethnic group that lives in the Orinoco Delta, between the states of Delta Amacuro, Sucre, Amazonas and Monagas between the south and northeast of Venezuela. According to the last official censuses, they make up around 26 thousand people; and it is the largest indigenous ethnic group in Venezuela.

The forced migration or displacement of the Warao indigenous people is not a new issue in Venezuela. It began in 2016, when the country’s social crisis worsened with the total shortage of food and medicine, added to the precariousness of the educational system and the collapse of health services that caused the massive displacement of Venezuelans.

In the case of indigenous people, in addition to food shortages, in 2016, some conditions affected their natural habitats, such as the contamination of rivers, malnutrition, Human Trafficking and the spread of diseases such as HIV, measles, diphtheria and tuberculosis that could not be cured due to the absence of essential medicines such as antibiotics and serums.

According to data obtained through the Kapé Kapé Civil Association, at the time of this report, at least 500 Warao indigenous people, including 140 children, died after suffering from measles and HIV-AIDS; the latter disease has killed 30% of this indigenous community, according to the organisation that defends indigenous rights.

Displacement and tragedy

The reality in 2022 has not changed, and forced migration has turned into a tragedy and deaths while trying to leave Venezuelan territory for Brazil and Guyana, in addition to the suffering and the precarious living conditions that worsened with COVID-19 pandemic have forced them to live in extreme poverty, malnutrition and many turned to beg as a way to survive.

In February 2022, eight bodies of Warao indigenous people were found in an area known as Morro Island or Bakamuju, in the Antonio Díaz municipality, at the mouth of the Orinoco, southeast of Venezuela the border with Guyana.

According to the civil association Kape Kape, the indigenous people died during an alleged shipwreck which occurred in the first days of January of this year while the victims were trying to flee poverty and malnutrition in Venezuela. Until March of this year, UNHCR has counted 24,500 migrants displaced to Guyana from Venezuela, of which some 2,500 belong to the Warao ethnic group.

The authorities of the administration of Nicolás Maduro began the investigation into these deaths. Institutions such as the Scientific Police (Cicpc), the National Armed Forces (FAN), the Public Ministry, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) assigned officials to start the investigations. Still, in the first three weeks of April 2022, there have been no results in this regard.

Ruth (pseudonym used at the request of the source) is a 25-year-old Warao woman who lived in the state of Amazonas in conditions of extreme poverty because her family was dedicated to agriculture. During the interviews, she stated that not having the means to feed her two daughters, 4 and 7 years old, forced her to move to Boa Vista, in Brazil, where she currently lives, with over two thousand other indigenous people.

She further stated that her life did not improve with the migration. She and her two little girls live in a shelter in Roraima, one of the two shelters that the Government of Brazil implemented to receive indigenous people who have refugee status in that country.

Activists defending indigenous rights stated that in the shelters located in Roraima, proper living conduction and safety are not guaranteed because they are surrounded by violence, including rape, drug sales and prostitution. The closest schools are many kilometres away, and xenophobia is part of everyday life for most of these migrants.

Ruth currently hopes to be able to return to farming. Still, while that is happening, she earns living collecting rubbish for recycling material and begging for money on the streets.

Information about the author:

Dr. C. Justine Pierre http://www.dpbglobal.com/consultancies/ is a Labour Market, Migration and Human Trafficking researcher located in Canada and the Caribbean Region. He was the team leader on the recently concluded; CARIFORUM/CARICOM Human Trafficking research project, which took place in the Caribbean in 2019. https://today.caricom.org/2019/07/29/cariforum-embarks-on-critical-human-trafficking-study/