In indigenous Colombia, Venezuelan migration sparks conflict

In the sun-baked scrubland of northern Colombia’s remote La Guajira province, a bitter quarrel rages between two neighboring Wayuu indigenous families, one of them seeking refuge from a humanitarian crisis across the border in Venezuela.

Their feud was sparked by goats. Without fences to stop them, their herds mingle amid the low bushes between the two homesteads, whipped by a hot and dusty desert wind here in ancestral Wayuu territory.

One family, the Ipuana Montiers - who recently arrived from Venezuela, fleeing shortages of food and medicine - say they have lost 50 goats to the herd belonging to their more established neighbors, the Ipuana, who count local leaders among their ranks.

Such conflicts over land, water and animals are increasingly common as Venezuela spirals into disaster and thousands of indigenous Wayuu who once left their Colombian homes for Venezuela return. The influx is testing the limits of tribal unity, according to Wayuu police and tribal mediators, known as pütchipü’üs.

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