Micaela, 15, Indigenous Wayuu from Northwestern Venezuela. “We left Paraguaipoa (Northwest Venezuela) in 2020 with my seven brothers and sisters and my father and mother. We walked for three days b (...)
efore crossing the border from Venezuela to Colombia. Then we arrived in La Gabarra in Colombia, and straight to the border city Cucutá. It took seven days. At the time, I was 11 years old. My mother was pregnant with my sister. It was terrible. But it’s better to be here than in Venezuela.” © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Patients wait for a doctor in a corridor of the Central University Hospital emergency service. In November 2018, Human Rights Watch warned of Venezuela’s “devastating health crisis,” pointing to in (...)
creasing rates of maternal and infant mortality and a spike in cases of measles, diphtheria, tuberculosis and malaria. Another recent report noted that 71% of emergency rooms could not provide regular services and 79% of hospitals lacked a reliable water supply. Only about 10 percent of hospitals have fully functioning emergency and operating rooms. Caracas, Venezuela. 2019. © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
A young man stands on a hill at El 23 de enero, a ghetto which has a long history with political transitions of Venezuela. In the 1980s, it produced the powerful Revolutionary Tupamaros Movement, a (...)
n urban guerilla group that formed a strategic alliance in prison with former president Hugo Chaves following his failed 1992 military coup. Now, the Tupamaros group is a national movement and one of Venezuela's many colectivos — left wing armed groups that operate on the street of caracas. Members of the group consider themselves the guardians of Chavez’s social revolution. Caracas, Venezuela. 2019.
Wilder, 18, was a police officer in Venezuela but left the country last week. “It’s because of the economic situation there. It's really hard — you cannot do anything with the money that you earn. (...)
I was a policeman, I joined the police forces a year ago, when I was 17. And my salary was 50 USD there. I had to do it, to survive. Everything was difficult because everything was so expensive [...], we were starving because sometimes there was no food. We didn’t have energy, we didn’t have water.’ Cúcuta, Colombia. 2025. © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Marcela, 21, with her daughter, 3. “Six years ago, it was 2019. First my father left the country and then my whole family, as the economic situation was getting worse. In the beginning, we thought (...)
that it was just for a year and maybe two years, but now I have the information that I will never go back to Venezuela.” © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Jose, 17, walked for three days fleeing from Portuguessa. Here, he is getting a health check at an NGO upon their arrival in Cúcuta. As a result of one of the largest displacement crises in the wor (...)
ld and the largest forced displacement crisis ever in Latin America, Colombia hosts the largest population of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the region, with nearly 3 million seeking safety within its borders, according to the Human Rights Watch. Cúcuta, Colombia. 2025. © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Gabriel, 16 years old. He fled Venezuela in 2015 with his mother and two brothers, taking shelter in Bogotá. He currently works part time in a car repair workshop, living in a room in the shop with (...)
his family. “It’s hard (here in Colombia), and really different from our own country. The people here are xenophobic. A few days ago I was with my brother and we went to a park, and an old man and woman started screaming at us, ‘Venecos’ (a disrespectful way of saying ‘Venezuelan’).” Bogotá, Colombia. 2025. © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Sofia, 24-year-old sociologist and activist. She fled Venezuela and took shelter in Colombia in 2024. “I was a leader of student groups. We took part during the demonstrations. I knew it was risky (...)
but I can’t stand injustice – that’s why I was involved in politics. My three close friends were kidnapped during the protests, one is still in jail. I thought, ‘I’m going to be the next.’” © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos
Angélica, 24, fled Venezuela and has lived in Bogotá since 2024. She describes a protest in which “everyone was running, but I stayed, and the police came and put the gun to my head. I was 15 and (...)
after this moment, the gun incident, I became an activist, a real activist.” Zipaquirá, Colombia. 2025. © Emin Ozmen/Magnum Photos