Steep rainbow-coloured steps lead us up through the shanty town known as “Venezuela”. Each riser is painted with a slogan: love, gratitude, respect, empathy, understanding, peace, protection and so on – each uphill heave, a sign of hope over experience.
This is a staircase in a Colombian favela entirely populated by Venezuelans. And run entirely by Tren de Aragua – the region’s biggest transnational narco-gang. Its residents are safe here. They are among the 8 million Venezuelans who have fled their homeland during the dozen years of Nicolas Maduro’s presidency.
