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A few weeks ago, I traveled to Ecuador and Venezuela to assess the conditions of Colombian refugees. And in one interview after the other, the accounts were both disturbing and similar to those I’ve heard from internally displaced people in Colombia.

Over the last four years, I have traveled throughout Colombia to visit families and entire communities who have been forced to flee their homes and villages in order to save their lives. I’ve spent afternoons in neighborhoods made of stilt houses in Tumaco and Buenaventura on the Pacific coast, hearing of fear and despair. I’ve interviewed displaced people crowded in classrooms and church halls in small towns.  In Chocó, Cordoba, Nariño and Arauca, just to mention a few, rural communities have expressed their sadness to me over having lost almost everything, being persecuted by guerrilla or paramilitary groups, and feeling rejected in the very places where they’ve sought refuge. I have also spoken with many leaders of displaced communities who, tirelessly and under huge risk of being harassed or killed, advocate for the rights of their people and engage Colombian authorities at all levels in order to receive humanitarian assistance and help to rebuild their lives.

In Ecuador, I met a Colombian refugee in her forties with six children. She had fled Tumaco, department of Nariño, in November of last year because armed people came to her home, beat her husband and told them to leave if they wanted to live. Another woman from the River Mira basin in Nariño told me “they killed my son, I couldn’t stay there anymore.  My other four children were in danger!”  

In Venezuela, I met a refugee who used to drive a boat on Colombia’s Magdalena River and is now selling sunglasses on the streets of Caracas.  He told me the story of his escape.  “I had to leave because I was accused by both guerrilla and paramilitaries of helping the enemy with my boat. A few years ago, they gave me 24 hours to disappear, so I fled to another town far away where I thought I could be safe. Then, three months ago I received a call and the same people threatened me, they found out where I was and they said I was going to be punished. I panicked, I crossed into Venezuela but still I am not feeling safe”.

Like the stories I’ve heard in Colombia, so many testimonies of the refugees in Ecuador and Venezuela were interrupted by tears and gestures of despair. Every story has such a heavy charge of violence and pain with a common ending: none of the refugees I talked to wanted to return home.  Their fear has crossed the border with them, and I can’t help but wonder if it can ever be overcome.