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Norte de Santander, where 37,915 infections due to covid-19 have been confirmed, remains on epidemiological red alert due to the increase in cases and faces a worrying crisis in the health network that reached 100% occupancy in the Intensive Care Units (UCI).
As explained by the authorities, the rule will be in effect from today until December 27, and from January 1 to 3, 2021, and applies to Colombians and the migrant population and in all bordering municipalities.
“The non-mobility provisions include the migrant population. We have had communications with the authorities of the state of Táchira to inform that the arrival at the border line is not allowed, nor is the mobility of Venezuelan migrants on foot or in irregular transport allowed. “, explained the Secretary of Borders and International Cooperation, Víctor Bautista.
Venezuelan walkers affected
According to Bautista’s office, for several days there have been flows of migrants that exceed 1,000 people a day, a “warning indicator due to the humanitarian conditions in which they move through the department.”
Due to the high flow of walkers, the authorities recalled that the 2,219-kilometer border between Colombia and Venezuela, remains closed until January 16, 2021, as ordered by the National Government.
“We are reinforcing the controls with public force and sending a message to the migrants on the other side of the border so that they understand that our border is closed,” assured the manager of the Colombian Border, Lucas Gómez.
However, the official recalled that for humanitarian reasons, the department’s authorities maintain the policy of assisting the walkers “Venezuelans who are fleeing from a regime that does not even feed them.”
“It is not easy to start walking with their children, many times children in arms, we have to put ourselves a little in the shoes of others and understand that the drama that they are living there implies that we have to receive them here,” Gómez stressed about the attention that the country offers to the most vulnerable migrants.
According to Migración Colombia, in Cúcuta, capital of the department of Norte de Santander, more than 100,000 Venezuelans have settled, a figure surpassed only by Bogotá where 333,000 of the 1.71 million Venezuelans living in the country are concentrated.
More biosecurity measures
Some 600 uniformed members of the National Police and the Colombian Army operate in the area to monitor compliance with the norm and support border and highway control measures.
“Venezuelan person who is wandering will be taken to (the international bridge of) Tienditas in application of the National Code of Security and Coexistence. There is a mandate for public health, it is not a mandate that mediates another situation, it is life, it is life of an entire country, it is the life of all of us who are here, “said the commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cúcuta, Colonel José Luis Palomino.
The officer added: “We are on a red alert, (with) 100% of the ICUs full, we are already going for a little more than 21 deceased doctors, we are already going with seven police officers who died from covid. This is highly worrying.
To mitigate the pandemic, the use of masks and masks has also been reinforced, as well as disinfection days because, as Palomino explained, “as soon as another regrowth occurs and / or the strain becomes more aggressive, we have to be sure.”
The coronavirus pandemic is boiling in Colombia, with records of infections in recent days, a total of 1,559,766 positive cases and 41,454 deaths.
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