Venezuela - Colombia / The most dangerous Border / How People Live

for the past three days we've been trying to figure out how to leave this place thank god i finally have my boarding pass check it out actually i think it's the pride and joy of this airport a piece of cardboard box wrapped in duct tape with an airline logo on top i've got seat number three as you can tell jesus i've never seen anything like this my people today i will show you why a population flees venezuela and why police shoot rubber bullets at youth on the country's border this tear gas is so strong that it even makes my skin burn okay this way the army here crush people with their tanks and disperse tear gas everywhere tensions are escalating here and it gets worse by the minute we meet gun-toting gangsters on bikes the hardest part of my job is to understand when exactly they're going to kick the jollies out we'll also investigate what protesters fire at police today they're using slingshots shooting these glass balls at us we'll investigate how people survive during a nationwide blackout while doctors are forced to use torches while doing operations whilst others buy expired meats because fridges don't work and take baths in gutters oh and i'll fill you in on my next destination shortly but first smash the like button and subscribe this time this is how the people live [Music] guys if you want to support my channel i really appreciate it please download the game raid shadow legends by following the link in the description it is a great new game which is available both on mobile and pc devices and it's really cool with 500 champions to collect each with their own skill trees no two champions will ever be the same my favorite faction is bunny lords just look at how epic they look and the graphics are just mind-blowing what's more epic is that i can equip my champions with different artifact sets and make them stronger typically i get them from the market all by winning the campaign battles ray just released a huge champion update tweaking and rebalancing over 20 different champions to make pvp arena battles even more competitive and if that's not enough the force just came out so now you can save time and start crafting top quality artifacts and competing right away if you're a new player and if you use my link in the description you get an awesome exclusive welcome pack that contains uh 50 000 silver then 50 000 gems five mystery shards one energy refill one day xp boost which is just awesome i think one from bosque and a free champion shaman look at this i would love to get this one this is how this champion looks and you will find your extra rewards here in your inbox for the next 30 days only so if you use the link in the description you will help me a lot and now let's get back to that hotspot in venezuela the part you see below the river is colombia and this is what the border used to look like when people flocked in thousands out of venezuela of course not all of these people were leaving forever but still this is what the same border looks like today with barbed wire and an official ban on exit this doesn't stop people from fleeing the country as you just keep your balance and press on some don't even bother with safety others set up a proper crossing although the river current is so strong that even advanced installations risk getting washed off people take everything that has value like this guy carrying a stove for example this other guy brought a toilet while some carry their family bed entrusting the headboard to a separate person so then how many people do you reckon fled venezuela in the last couple of years 15 000 150 000 1.5 million or 3.5 million according to reports provided by the un by february 2019 almost three and a half million people have fled the country taking into account that the current population is 32 million that equates to 10 of the entire country people flee to argentina one of the most developed countries in south america brazil chile ecuador but most move to nearby colombia first because it's in the top five of the world's richest countries plus it's right next door and its border isn't packed with army patrol units the biggest difficulty lies in getting to the border it makes for a very dangerous trip for a foreigner hence we took an hour flight to the nearby city and then drove for three hours to get to the border the closer we got to the border the more army we saw there isn't so much of it at the border but on the way to it with a checkpoint every 10 to 15 kilometers the problem is that's precisely where we were during the times of maximum instability as maduro turned into the most hated individual in the country whilst protesters burn police cars and tires the army blocked the stream and tries to disperse opposition gatherings so they don't form one massive controlled crowd here is an example of it we're in a taxi and the road gets suddenly blocked by the army locals get furious that adds to general hate towards maduro's army i step out of the car get my phone out and then [Music] a soldier didn't like that i was filming so he decided to take my phone off me i started to fight back but then tear gas happened [Music] oh crap our cameraman picks up his bag and gets out of the car as tear gas can only mean that in 15 seconds will temporarily go blind and be unable to breathe while the police go at you with clubs so the best thing to do is to just duck and cover find a ravine and quite simply hope for the best time to continue to the border police has blocked the 10 kilometer area around the border for cars and um basically we had to ask these guys to take us closer to the border the city streets are absolutely packed with the army and police preparing to fight back the opposition venezuela music if you happen to find yourself on the bus with army members of maduro's ministers get used to people throwing stones at you here are three burned buses that used to carry around musicians that performed at a concert arranged to support maduro's regime windows were shattered whilst everything that could be sold was ripped out and stolen so here's the thing if you travel like a standard citizen it's the army that won't let you anywhere but the masked biker gangs called colictivos are even worse since they can kill you on the spot without even bothering to figure out who you are we came across them right near the border four bikes and two gunmen on each patiently waiting for their ringleader to show up in comes the ringleader in a red shirt and the whole group starts going at the police something's gonna happen now right not really they just silently let them through and one of the gang members even raises his hand to say hello see that gun that the ringleader is carrying i can assure you it's the most harmless part of his arsenal oh and one of the bikers even has a pass a pass that is usually distributed amongst government employees as i've later been told once confrontations with opposition became unbearable for the army to handle they call in the gangs and gangs never mess about this here is what a typical skirmish without guns looks like it's impossible to sum up the tension on this border right now between venezuela and colombia protesters literally try to break their way through the bridge that connects the two countries the wind pushes the tear gas back towards the cot gas is so strong that it feels like my skin is burning [Music] okay okay okay this way okay the situation is tense guys it's especially tense the cities and the towns right near the border oh god it's like never-ending mayhem army mainly uses smoke grenade machine guns and boy do they use them often this guy just brought a new bag with supplies plus they also use guns with rubber bullets this is what to expect if they get you and i remember getting shot with such bullets in france once it got me in the helmet but it did seem like a brick fell on my head once the supplies are out policemen don't mind throwing a bunch of stones to retaliate as for the youth they're equipped with shields and hide everywhere you could possibly fit they even nick some granny's chair by the looks of things some make makeshift ladders to get up onto the bridge while cctv cameras are always the top priority for dismantling so the police do not find out who they are ammunition the protesters have access to are stones and molotov cocktails that are made of fuel and let's not go into that though we don't want to get blocked still molotovs aren't the biggest problem since you can dodge them slingshots are the real pain as for bullets they use glass balls like this one here that leave little holes in the policeman's helmets that's not the end of it though locals had adapted these slingshots into trebuchets to fire missiles of the police given the state of the economy gas masks can be considered as a luxury item hence protesters make them out of plastic bottles and cotton wool ingenious army is often supported by armored vehicles with rotating towers and they are pretty much lethal driving right into the crowd shooting rubber bullets and running people over left right and center this was filmed a month after we left the place this whole war-like situation began when the country acquired a second president who aimed to unite the opposition let's quickly delve into what happened there in january 2019 an opposition leader juan guedo proclaimed himself as the new president back at the time he served as parliamentary chairman and his presidency was approved by over 50 countries across the world including donald trump so technically speaking for the last six months venezuela is ruled by two presidents whilst the latter candidate becomes the reason for the mayhem at colombia's borders he decided the country needed humanitarian help that was offered by the us and brought trucks with supplies to the aforementioned border maduro on the other hand said that it will only happen over his dead body and blocked all three bridges that link the countries i'm now in venezuela but right at the border with colombia which you can see across the bridge roughly a kilometer away it is clear that venezuela has done all the work in an attempt to block the bridges it really is something here you see the metal gates at the front concrete bollards behind me and there's this huge iron fence you can see it welded to the uh metal right here and it's all done to stop people getting in from the uh colombian side to stop any humanitarian aid getting through essentially which is considered by venezuelan officials as being interference in national affairs oh and uh just in case anyone tries to get round the bridge it dug this massive trench to stop anyone going through the break is eventually started via other two bridges and ended up with the trucks being burned out to the metal followed by information that local police carry responsibility for this correspondent at least three people were found dead topped by a minimum of three hundred casualties marking the beginning of violent clashes that was too much to keep staying on these forces see this burning truck it's a result of what molotov boys do and right now police are trying to advance their position along the bridge to push opposition further out check this out the molotov cocktail remains are still here that's what they look like it's the tops that you light up before throwing the bottle and here is the result the skeleton of a burnt out truck quite an intimidating sight i must say i've never seen anything like it it's probably why it has such an effect on me third bridge is named after simon bolivar and until recently it served as the most popular way of crossing into colombia this is what that same bridge used to look like on a normal day but then cars were banned from it followed by people also which made them enraged since most of them work in nearby colombian city of jukuta and closed borders meant that they either lose their jobs or have to cross the border illegally on a daily basis try to guess what these cars are queuing for to cross the border to get mot refuel or for a service they are here for fuel because what locals like to do here is to take rock bottom cheap fuel from venezuela to colombia and sell it there you basically fuel up your car drive it over the bridge and drain the fuel out once you find a buyer leaving some in the tank for a return trip price-wise you buy it for 0.01 per litre and sell it for 53 cents which is 530 times more expensive of course locals sell their fuel slightly cheaper than that but still a tank of fuel means roughly 26.50 in profit [Music] we're back on the bridge again and it's practically covered with large stones that were thrown at the army and police they are just everywhere here the army doesn't really have any specialized equipment hence they use standard pvc boards and metal boxes as shields like the one that was just thrown down to the river see it's right there quite intense i must say and it's primarily intense because you never know what sudden aggression may lead to it's one of the toughest parts of my job really to clearly identify when you're about to get the [ __ ] kicked out of you on the day when the trucks got to the border it was only 100 meters that separated the army from the opposition the socialists that support maduro yep such people exist and it's mainly the poor layer of the population that is happy to sometimes get something for free free taxi rides bags with groceries and relocation from favelas to the city when maduro asks them at gatherings whether they want to pay for electricity like in the rest of the world they of course screamed no better than any professional choir this is why we cannot let the americans in he says because they always come with their bloody capitalism hence the people who support maduro are not just extras but it's a crowd that is ready to fight for him they sharpen their wooden sticks arranged stones by size and wait for opposition that is held back by police 200 meters away at first they may come across as a shy bunch but once reinforcements arrive on more buses they are literally ready to tear the place apart no one really knows what has just happened but the whole city is now submersed into darkness it's a city-wide power cut and as you can see it's only cars headlights that light up the street from now on this specific power cut turned out to be nationwide affecting 22 out of 23 states of the country this is what it looked like from space and you can see that by comparison columbia glowing like a christmas tree needless to say but mobile phone networks disappeared along with electricity and it took us three days to finally get back in touch with nikolai our friend from my previous video by the way the person you see in the mirror is the driver not nikolai so don't worry about him he didn't get compromised the worst thing about the power cut is that it affects hospitals making doctors light up the operation tables with their mobile phones and manually ventilate incubators for newborns unfortunately the doctors couldn't save this woman's child doctor told me that they're off since there is no electricity and i have to go to another hospital to get my kid checked up she first had stomach cramps then i started to vomit treatment that became impossible to execute is dialysis it's when your kidneys fail and your body must regularly be cleaned from scarifying and salts reserve generators are obviously non-existent and hence this treatment along with many others stopped existing surprisingly though some malls somehow still had electricity but this next place had simply put me in all welcome to the office of the government-owned extremely rich oil company whose generators supply power to the building even during the bloody day at the time when the whole country is cut out i mean why on earth don't you share it with hospitals no electricity naturally means no phone calls first of all because you can't charge your mobile this guy here used to laminate documents prior to today but he quickly understood that no one needs that anymore so instead he realized people need to have their phones charged and this is why he's now running a generator with nine sockets ready to charge you up and get connected to the world ridiculous it costs 500 volleyballs but what else can we do about it just so you don't go off for a calculator that's around about 10 cents and here is a woman who organized it all she covered her camera so we don't film her so we obviously won't we cannot get in touch with our relatives and have no idea what's happening in this country we have zero information basically power cut lasted for 20 hours straight then the supplier returned for an hour got cut off again that's when looting began this for example has been filmed in the town of maracabal here we see women picking sausages up and yes power cut also means that all meat started to rot too associated press spoke to a father of three about this and this is what he said it doesn't smell nice but it becomes bearable once you wash it with lemon and vinegar traffic lights obviously don't work either see this intersection all traffic lights are off and that includes the pedestrian ones too i must say that situation on the streets is quite tense especially during the evenings plus we heard shots fired through the entire night night confrontations with the police are absolutely insane as officials run around like ninjas looking for protesters who in turn throw molotovs from the balconies sending fire to police cars and general transport it's basically a fully fledged street fight within the city boundaries along with power cup water supply stop too since water pumps run on electricity hence people risked their lives going down steep slopes to get drinking water from a river that is far from being clean there is just no other place to get it from need to shower that's what the city's water drain system is for why did you get in there yeah we've got no water no electricity and there are no water trucks what water trucks due to the power cuts small towns became practically unlivable as we spend ages strolling across the whole city in search of a place that would sell us food for dollars or would at least accept a credit card resultantly we got food poisoning at a lovely local cafe then spent the whole day at the hotel recovery and finally switched to bananas because we simply could go for no other food bananas for breakfast lunch and dinner this is when we decided to fly to caracas but turned out it's not as easy as it may sound there were no flights no buses think we could have rented a car well try explaining to a local what a renter car is that there was the beautiful bloody hell guys it's such a mission to fly from one city to another here i don't even mean flying abroad you can't buy a ticket online because there is no freaking online for the past three days we've been trying to figure out how to leave this place and then it's only really thanks to the help of a local woman that we managed to sort anything out i mean here's how it works they open a software that looks like a game called doom 2 from 1994 you type in your details and then you show up to the airport no later than four hours before your flight as otherwise your booking will be cancelled and once you're here the fun really begins especially if you're a foreigner they obviously don't accept international cards and don't be fooled by thinking that they accept local cards or debit cards either oh no you can pay with the local credit card yeah freaking fantastic so this is what happens next oh and they don't accept us dollars either thank god the woman that is helping us sorted things out and there is no way this could have worked back at home so one of us has a luggage case that they will keep as a guarantee of payment and once we land in caracas and pay there that's when they'll give us our luggage back anyway thank god i finally have my boarding pass check it out actually i think it's the pride and joy of this airport a piece of cardboard box wrapped in duct tape with an airline logo on top i've got seat number three as you can tell jesus i've never seen anything like [Music] this upon our return karaka seemed like new york to us but water shortage was hit in the same way it did the rest of the country food quickly became extinct too even in the most expensive hotel in the city it had a maximum of 10 guests news reporters of course all checked into specific rooms by the way that are apparently wiretapped i on the other hand never hid my thoughts on the country whilst being in the room so either their wiretapping is typically broken or they're simply super tolerant and open-minded people what's the it is impossible to get any food in the evenings i'm talking about the first couple of days all restaurants close by 7pm and that includes the one in our hotel the most expensive hotel in the whole city as for room service a simple soup will set you back by twenty dollars and that's why we opened up our canned pasta this is now caringly being warmed up on a hair dryer mmm delicious looks like a brick here is what a pharmacy looked like during these first days i've counted five types of medication proudly positioned across a whole width of the shelves it's actually the most popular way of product placement here as this way it may not seem that there is any shortage if you come here without any pills and get ill there is no other way to describe it apart from your fact local russians for example always bring loads of medicine with them when they return from abroad as it is the only way to make sure that you won't die we made our way to the main promenade street in caracas and it is in full lockdown even kfc is shot whilst employees hang about outside as there is nothing much they can do freeze there fridges and coolers don't work cards can't be used either it is impossible to buy anything if you don't have the local currency in cash day of course because cars require electricity to be processed no one for some reason can exchange dollars cash machines obviously don't work either let me show you one actually this one here looks like it never really worked at all but the one next to it was definitely operational we then found a shop that had electricity solely because the owner had a generator but this still doesn't mean that he can accept cards as banks are clearly not as well prepared as he is guess who controls all the banks in the country by the way and no there won't be multiple answer options the reason for the power cut is the failure at the power station and surprisingly this huge country with a population of 32 million is serviced by just one power plant it caught fire maduro officially stated that it was a cyber attack arranged by guess who correct guido on the other hand blamed it all on corruption since the chavez regime invested 100 million into the infrastructure these power cuts lasted for over a month and due to the continuous protests and clashes 43 people died confrontations were happening every week and every week the backlash only got stronger imagine if you just finished school right why go to university when there are no jobs government jobs mean bribes there is also mining or you can join a gang for example i mean there are even low i.t programmers here who can secure the power plant from cyber attacks as a result everyone either joins a gang or the regime because there is no other way to earn the most unusual place where locals flee to is an island that belongs to the netherlands situated 80 kilometers away i know i was shocked too i mean what on earth is in common between venezuela and amsterdam right [Music] people here talk in dutch and a local dialect and as for human rights it's not as straightforward as in the netherlands but not as critical as in venezuela either although residency permit applications are not accepted here refugees still show up packed up on fishing boats due to quite strict patrolling the best site for docking is on the northern part of the island which means that you must first cover 80 kilometers and then go around the whole island and this is the most dangerous place of the island for boats to come but this is the only way for them to avoid to be catched by the police they have to climb here you can imagine at night without light of anything there is no beach there is no way to go up so they have to just go with the rock you can see they are so high the wind is hard this can cut your bodies we are talking about about two between two and three and three boats by weeks they are both with capacity for 20 people but they bring 35 40 meaning twice or even more unlike many this woman actually managed to get safely to the island we were sitting when a way hit us and the boat began to see we all jumped we were in the water for four hours it was horrible there was an 18 year old girl and i had to push it away women who cannot pay the traffickers are often ordered to pay working as prostitutes which is a standard scheme for luring people into sexual slavery i had to pay a four hundred dollars fine when i go here you mean fee right yes it is a fee we have to pay no one really made us to do this but it's the way they arranged it all that we had no other option but complying i've never seen anything like this guys we're in a massive international airport that has simultaneous flights to various countries across the world and there is also no electricity supply here there are a bunch of lights that work off generators but the main building is in total darkness nothing works here they can't check you in nor can they take your luggage nothing works this huge queue must be 500 meters long serviced by one single customs employee who manually cross-checks each passport with a long list of passengers that is printed out it is absolutely unreal we have an hour and a half left until takeoff and it takes them at least 10 minutes to process each person here is how everything works an airline rep shouts out the passenger's surname whilst everyone in the queue repeats it to locate the right passenger in the massive line travelers then proceed to the registration desk where their boarding pass and luggage ticket is filled in by hand by the rep back then i still was in full hope that my luggage wouldn't be lost this place feels like a sauna to be honest with you as there is no air conditioning or ventilation going on and everyone is sweating like crazy it feels like all hell will break loose in a second since some are cueing for over 20 hours already hand luggage just checked in by hand but no one really delves into it as for example only front pockets in my bag would check thoroughly as you can imagine one doesn't have to be an escape art genius to pull off a terrorist attack up in there customs weren't much different as all computer systems are down they have no way of doing a background check on you so they simply ask you a bunch of questions and send you off oh and duty-free zone was straight out of i am legend the only working spot the airport turned out to be this bar that followed the same product placement strategy as we saw in the capital luckily for us we had crackers that our cameraman managed to save up best way to survive in venezuela is to bring your own food with you after a quick walk down some broken escalator five hours later we boarded our plane and took off to make an unplanned stopover in the dominican republic because obviously the plane couldn't be loaded with water food and everything else as for my luggage it started its new life back in caracas wish me luck and subscribe for god's [Music] sakes [Music] [Music]

Channel: The People

Views: 3,195,265

Rating: 4.7566295 out of 5

Keywords: venezuela, venezuela documentary, documentary, life in venezuela, how people live, travel venezuela, tours, anton lyadov, lyadov, the people, venezuela vlog, nicolas maduro, maduro venezuela, maduro, hugo chavez, venezuela crisis, documentaries, caracas, venezuela travel, travel, travel vlog, venezuela tourism, tourism, people, north korea vlog, north korea documentary, crimes, crime, amazing facts, colombia, juan guaido, venezuela military, border, most dangerous

Id: QUn9hm-xmFs

Length: 29min 12sec (1752 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/warcitos]

I have not finished watching this but around minute 6:40, he has footage of chaos in an entirely different country. You can see the officers there have a Dominican Republic flag on their shoulder. It would appear to me this is heavily edited for likes.

[u/nikshdev]

By the way, the author of this video had been working for Russian state TV when he filmed this (of course most of this didn't make it to his TV report).

Once he was caught attributing his own words to a person he interviewed to fit his story.

He quit that job some time after he made this documentary and concentrated on his personal channel (the English version of which was posted by the OP), that has a content 180° different from what he was filming for TV.

[u/SenorPinchy]

There's some interesting footage here but I'd really ask you all to be skeptical of this guy's knowledge of the context in Venezuela. I study the region and I can tell you that pretty much any time he starts trying to explain the larger situation he has a very naive, simplistic, and misinformed perspective. If you're looking for hints, he starts off from the beginning being very condescending because a bus pass is... on cardboard. Clearly he has no connection with Latin America at all.

[u/blitzinger]

Did I mishear? Did he say Colombia is among top 5 wealthiest countries in the world?

[u/Shillforbigusername]

I see a lot of bickering over who's to blame for Venezuela's problems. One side says it's foreign intervention, the other says it's 100% their fault.

Is anyone considering the simple possibility that maybe, just maybe, Venezuelan leadership has been fucking up for quite a while to the detriment of their own people while simultaneously being fucked with by foreign powers that exacerbate the issues?

There are a ton of problems that Venezuela can't logically blame on anyone but themselves, but it's also true that the US sanctions, for instance, placed on them "for the people" exacerbate those economic conditions, and make life harder for their working class. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned about these sanctions doing exactly that.

There's also a policy that became known as the Mann Doctrine, which basically states that the US treats dictators in Latin America based on how they treat US investment interests moreso than how they treat their own people. There's a long history of foreign intervention in Latin America, and it's generally not for the humanitarian reasons they cite in the media.

It's not a stretch to say maybe we're not really there to help the people like we claim. John Bolton himself (when in the Trump administration) was openly declaring that their administration is keeping in close communication with oil companies, and that US intervention will be good for the US economy.

There's a lot of material in this link, but the description of what I'm referring to is in the first paragraph of the summary section. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36365.htm

[u/manlywho]

“Smash that like button!”

[u/mrperson296]

Its really sad what is happening to that country. They need to overthrow their president. When you give your hard-core supporters guns and tell them to take to the streets to protect the government, you know you have lost all legitimacy.

[u/rawkstaugh]

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to enjoy watching something, but have to play 'volume jockey' throughout the entire thing. C'mon people, this is basic video editing 101.

[u/thatoneguyy2]

My country is full of these refugees and from the stories they’ve told the conditions in venezuela is absolutely dire