This map was produced by Abel Gil Lobo for El Orden Mundial, in collaboration with Ayuda en Acción, as course material for a course at the University of the Basque Country in 2021. It highlights the migration crisis in Venezuela, based on data provided by Eurostat (2018), ISTAL (2018) and WWF (2019).

The Venezuelan exodus began around 2008 and intensified in the following years with the country’s economic collapse, reaching between 5.6 and 7 million people by the date of the map’s publication. Most of the emigrants come from the north of the country, where two-thirds of Venezuela’s population is concentrated, in cities such as Caracas, Valencia and Barquisimeto. The main routes (black arrows) cross the Andes via Mérida and end by crossing into Cúcuta, in Colombia. Other minor routes take migrants to the Caribbean islands (Aruba, Curaçao and Trinidad), or from Maracaibo to northern Colombia.

The map also shows information on organised crime and the drug cartels’ conflict with the Colombian and Venezuelan armed forces (red lines). This crackdown on the drug cartels led to thousands more people being displaced from Venezuela to Colombia. These dynamics explain how Colombia became the largest recipient of Venezuelan migrants, a position that will still hold true in 2025.

Sources

• A map of the migration crisis in Venezuela