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Venezuelan Refugees Strain Colombian Border Towns

By Manuel Rueda

Communities and public officials struggle with a growing influx of Venezuelans fleeing hunger, instability.

CÚCUTA, Colombia --- Majerly Ospina lives with her three children in a tin roof shack with walls of green plastic. They have no running water or electricity. Despite the hardships, Ospina is thankful for what they have in Colombia; living conditions were tougher in her native Venezuela.

“You can’t find food there,” she said, holding her five-month-old baby, who was born in a Colombian hospital. “We had to eat arepas – corn cakes – for a whole month because we couldn’t afford anything else.”

Food scarcity, hyperinflation and political instability are forcing...

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