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When he left Haiti as an irregular migrant, Pedro * knew that he was very likely to face coyotes, extortion, bad weather, lack of food and authorities who could deport them. But not even in the remotest of their nightmares was it that a pandemic left them stranded in a town in Urabá, Antioquia, halfway between their house and the unknown future they were looking for.
On March 20, 2020, when the quarantine for life in Antioquia was decreed, the streets of Necoclí were deserted and in a corner of the beach he and other migrants got together so as not to feel alone. That day, he says, the dreams of taking a boat to Capurganá vanished, allowing them to continue walking to Panama and all of Central America.
The boats began to be scarce 18 days before, when the Cocomanorte Community Council (Afro authority in Capurganá) closed its dock and the passage on its roads, fearing that some foreigner would come with the fearsome virus that was mentioned in the news. Emigdio Pertuz, spokesman for the community, said that the decision was made because there was no authority watching over who or under what conditions came to that village that more than two decades ago learned to live with people who pass through and hardly ever speak Spanish.
In Necoclí people began to complain: while the people were complying with the mandatory preventive isolation decreed by the National Government, hundreds of migrants roamed the streets looking for food or transportation to Panama.
The problem became so great that the Mayor’s Office had to consult the Foreign Ministry, Colombia Migration, the UN and other entities to find out what to do.
“The Ministry of Health told us that we could attend to these people as a population in a street situation, because they have nowhere to live. They had to be confined and they were not going to do it if they did not have their basic needs satisfied, ”said Mayor Tobón.
That is why on March 24 Tobón signed the contract with the Brisa y Mar Foundation to serve this population and, for the first time, the humanitarian crisis was dimensioned: 294 migrants were stranded, including 67 children and 10 pregnant women.
According to the census, 247 of them are Haitians, but there are also Cubans, Chileans, Brazilians, Venezuelans, and a group of Africans from Congo, Mauritania, Senegal and Cameroon.
All were transferred to the municipal coliseum where they were given tents, cleaning supplies and 50 fans were distributed to mitigate the heat. “We know that they are overcrowded, that social distancing is not being fulfilled, but we have no more spaces or resources to move them. The situation overflowed our capacity ”, confessed the mayor.
The problem is that the quarantine was extended and on April 27 the contract expired. Janna Vásquez, coordinator of the shelter, explained that the Foundation assumed the payment of the six food handlers they cook daily, and that she and two other officials continued to work as humanitarian work. “The Government sent us 295 markets and with that we have eight days of food assured. We are collecting aid from UNHCR, the Army and businessmen because we cannot leave them like this, ”he said.
In addition, they sent requests to the Icbf to look for educational options for the children in case the isolation is prolonged, and assistance for the maternal ones since there is one that will give birth in about four weeks. “They don’t want their children to be born here, but there are no alternatives,” he said.
Janna and her team have overcome all kinds of problems: on the second day of their stay the sewer collapsed and every week they have to do some additional intervention because it is not designed for so many people, they had to get gym instructors to be able to eliminate football (contact sport ), and a video beam borrowed to be able to entertain people at night.
The good news, says the mayor, is that there have been no coronavirus outbreaks in the shelter or in the town, at least until now.
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