A Venezuelan woman created the Hope of a Mother committee to bring together women searching for their loved ones who went missing on the border between Venezuela and Colombia.
The mothers’ organization registered 41 cases of missing persons, at least 28 of them in areas of the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
On August 30, representatives of the organization met in Caracas to demand that the authorities investigate the cases and hold them responsible for the disappearances.
Where are the missing?
Ceneida Bastos, one of the mothers, declared to a Colombian radio station that she had not heard anything about her son since July 17, 2019, when she went to work at the bus terminal in San Cristóbal, in the western Venezuelan state of Táchira state.
The mother reported that at the time of her son’s disappearance, she was requested by the police to wait 48 hours before filing a report on the incident.
Another case affected Lisbeth Zurita’s son, who disappeared in Cúcuta, Colombia, while he was trying to return to Venezuela through the Colombian department of Norte de Santander.
The mother reported that the young man had left the country in 2019 at the age of 25, to work in the mines of Puerto Inirida, near the border with the southern Venezuelan state of Amazonas.
Zurita has received no answers from the Venezuelan authorities. The mother even traveled to Colombia to file a complaint in that country and look for his son on the streets.
The Red Cross and the missing
The Red Cross committee, which offers humanitarian assistance to migrants in the border towns of San Antonio (Venezuela) and Cúcuta (Colombia), took blood samples from the mothers in case they ever had to recognize a person in the area.
The Hope of a Mother
The Hope of a Mother committee was created in 2021 when Lisbeth Zurita realized the number of cases similar to hers and, since then, they have hoped that the resumption of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela could translate into greater support for the search for her children.
Translated by José Rafael Medina
