Until a week ago, Enrique Ceballos was a High Court judge in eastern Venezuela. But now he’s waiting on a plastic chair outside an NGO-run registration centre for asylum seekers in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.
Some 1,300 metres above sea level, where millennia-long tectonic movements pushed golden veins to the upper crusts of the earth, sits an ancient town.
The village now is at the centre of an international legal battle, because of a free trade agreement that enables multinational companies to claim high sums of money from the Colombian state at a World Bank tribunal if projects are perceived to be unrightfully halted or blocked.
Following a peace deal with rebels, another conflict threatens residents: a massive dam project that has displaced thousands.
Read the report by Joe Parkin Daniels and myself for The Guardian.
San José de Cúcuta, Colombia: de zon brandt meedogenloos op de hoofden van de honderden Venezolanen die al vier uur in de rij staan voor het Colombiaanse immigratiekantoor bij de Bolívar Brug. Zakjes water worden uitgedeeld in een tent van het Rode Kruis, waar migranten ook van een internetverbinding en telefoon gebruik kunnen maken om familieleden van hun soms dagenlange tocht op te hoogte te houden.
It’s about the distance of a drive from Berlin to Athens. The 2,219-kilometre long Colombian-Venezuelan border has long been porous and difficult to manage. There are seven official crossings, but nearly 300 clandestine trails, called trochas, are fought over for control by various illegal armed groups, used by smugglers and crossed daily by thousands of migrants, often at great risk.
