From here, to Venezuela

Gabriel Alfonzo Sanchez stands quietly at a stove in the Colombian beach hostel where he works, pushing his lunch of chopped vegetables and rice around a frying pan, the dog-tag around his neck jingling as he stirs. To the bikini-wearing backpackers busy squashing avocados in the background, nothing about him would seem out of the ordinary: he’s just another 26-year-old in surfer shorts and flip-flops, carrying his slender frame and wide shoulders casually, flashing a playful smile now and then.

But Gabriel is Venezuelan. And like most of his friends and peers right now, he’s a long way from home and living a life that is anything but a holiday. Last year, he gathered up what he could and fled Venezuela’s devastating economic and political crisis, joining an estimated four million people – 10 per cent of the country’s population – who have left since 2014.

A collapse in oil prices combined with a strained political landscape under the Chávez and Maduro governments – causing tension with both domestic elites and the West – has made food, medical supplies and water almost non-existent in what was South America’s richest country just 17 years ago. Hyperinflation and devaluation of the Bolivar mean savings and incomes are now almost worthless; violence and disorder plague the streets, prompting students to drop out of universities at an alarming rate. Whether emigrating on foot,