The New Yorker:

The Colombian border city of Cúcuta braces for more turmoil.

By Daniel Alarcón

By the time I arrived in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, in mid-January, most of the journalists who’d come after U.S. Special Operations Forces had captured and extracted the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, on January 3rd, had left. They’d descended on Cúcuta from Belgium and France and Mexico and the U.S., in the hope of entering Venezuela by crossing the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, the busiest of three bridges spanning the Táchira River. (At that time, and still, it was nearly impossible for foreign journalists to get a visa to enter the country, and, in any case, there were few flights to Caracas.) But it had soon become clear that there was little chance of their entering Venezuela safely. On January 5th, the day Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as interim President, fourteen journalists, thirteen of them working for international media outlets and news agencies, were detained. One was deported. A couple of days later, two journalists, a Colombian and a Mexican, were stopped at Tienditas, another of Cúcuta’s border crossings, and held for hours, before being expelled.

The Simón Bolívar bridge is almost always bustling. Swarms of cars and vans come and go from both sides; idling buses advertise destinations as far-flung as Lima or Santiago or Mendoza. On the Colombian side, buzzing armies of motorcycles with uniformed drivers compete to shuttle you or your merchandise to San Antonio del Táchira, the closest city in Venezuela. It’s hot and dusty, blue-gray clouds of exhaust burping from passing trucks. You can visit one of several currency-exchange offices or bars blaring cumbia, or just sit on the curb and take in the spectacle—all the usual chaos one sees at a border that functions both as a transit hub and as an open-air market for legal and contraband goods. On either side of the bridge, there are dozens of illicit routes across the river that are controlled by binational armed groups, bypassing even the occasional cursory checks that might occur at the official border crossing. Movement in both directions is fluid and relentless, the checkpoints usually little more than a formality. A pedestrian, leaving Colombia, can stroll past the gate and cross the bridge on foot; a driver can roll by without so much as a wave at the guards. You could conceivably do the same when you get to the other side, though, these days, if you are neither Colombian nor Venezuelan, it’s not exactly advisable.

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