Nicolò Filippo Rosso

Exodus

In Latin America, lack of job opportunities, limited access to education, and political corruption have persisted for generations, fueling cycles of violence and displacement that are both symptoms and causes of disrupted societies. I have documented this phenomenon for the past four years, traveling along migration routes from Venezuela to Colombia and from Central America to Mexico and the United States. Following migrants from different countries for such a long time, I have seen countless stories of loss and separation through the eyes of the most vulnerable: those who are born, grow and die on the move. As I documented migrants’ journeys, I kept in mind the diversity of reasons that push each population to emigrate. Still, I also understood how the political persecutions, the impunity, and the problematic access to primary rights such as food and healthcare broadly affect Latin America’s societies, provoking mass migrations across the continent.

Decades of civil war, endemic poverty, or violence make it hard for migrants to find better conditions than those they are fleeing. Crossing borderlands controlled by gangs and rebel groups, people are exposed to trafficking and recruitment. There, coming of age is arduous. In a state of constant alertness, adolescents often tend to duplicate models of violence as a way to survive in the sole environment they have known. For thousands of children born during the migration, the hurdles of a stateless condition will prevent them from acquiring fundamental freedoms, which could expose them to exclusion and discrimination. Some people never reach their destination. Others continue to move, often on foot, dreaming of finding safer places where they will start a new chapter of their lives.

People follow an illegal path to enter Colombia, near Villa del Rosario in North Santander, Colombia, one of the busiest regions for border crossings, on October 9, 2018. Although Venezuela officially closed its land border with Colombia in February 2020, around 300 clandestine crossing points remained active. During the pandemic, illegal border crossings in both directions have made epidemiological monitoring impossible, increasing the population’s risk of catching COVID-19.

A family sits in a truck in Paraguachón, a Colombian border town, on their way to the central city of Maicao on August 11, 2018. Smuggling, theft, extortion, violence, and human trafficking are commonplace. Those who can afford a bus ticket move on to the bigger cities of the northern Colombian coast. Others continue the journey on foot. Many end up living in the streets or informal camps on the outskirts of the town, with little access to food, clean water, or health care

A young girl gazes into the empty plastic cup in which she collects coins on the streets of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, on October 31, 2018. On the day of this photograph, charitable Colombians handed out Halloween costumes to children living in a migrant camp. When the group arrived, a young girl was begging from passing drivers, exchanging coins for candies. She ran to get a costume, immediately putting it on as she walked back to the intersection.

People crowd onto a truck at the entrance of an illegal dirt road connecting Colombia and Venezuela in Paraguachón, La Guajira, Colombia, on July 6, 2018. The 2219 km-long frontier between the two countries has just seven official immigration checkpoints (UNHCR). At this crossing point, cars and trucks stop to let people get in and out – an opportunity Wayuu children seize to sell water and snacks.

Venezuelan children hold plastic bottles filled with water while waiting for a free meal at a charity in Paraguachón, Colombia, on August 10, 2019. According to UNICEF, of the 1.8 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, some 430,000 are children and adolescents. Migrant children are often exposed to dangerous conditions, with little access to education and little hope for the future.

Frankilina Epiayu, a Wayuu indigenous midwife, kneads the belly of a pregnant girl in a settlement of Venezuelan migrants in Uribia, in La Guajira, Colombia, on July 5, 2019. In 2019, the photographer followed Epiayu as she assisted women with childbirth. In La Guajira, there is no prenatal care for migrant mothers. Women on the move walk until they are physically unable to. Those in the camps either seek a ride to hospitals in the city or give birth at home.

Luis Arevalo, who migrated from Venezuela to Colombia in search of job opportunities, sits in the back of a pickup truck, mourning the death of his sister, Luisana, in Riohacha, Colombia, on August 17, 2018. She died of asphyxia in a car, and her family could not afford to repatriate her body to Venezuela. Luisana’s mother was able to travel to Colombia to assist with the funeral, thanks to the support of a local NGO.

A Venezuelan couple observes their newborn in an incubator at the Erasmo Meoz Hospital in Cucuta, in North Santander, Colombia, on May 22, 2018. The lack of medicines and doctors in Venezuela worsened healthcare conditions and put childbirths at risk. According to government data reported by Venezuelan media in 2017 (for which the Health Ministry refused to comment), infant mortality and maternal deaths increased by over 65% from 2015 to 2018.
In 2021, the Colombian government announced a new statute that could regularize almost a million Venezuelans, including children, adolescents, and newborns.

Mourners walk to the Tuilelén cemetery in Comitancillo, Guatemala, to bury Rivaldo Jiménez Ramírez, Santa Cristina García, and Iván Gudiel Pablo on March 14, 2021. On January 22, 2021, nineteen charred bodies were found on a country road in Tamaulipas, Mexico’s northeastern state bordering the United States. The massacre, according to investigators, would be linked to a dispute between criminal groups over control of the migrant routes.

A child watches from the window of a bus in Honduras, near the country’s western border with Guatemala, on January 15, 2021. Despite COVID-19-related border closures, refugees and migrants from Central America continued to flee their countries and head north throughout 2020 and 2021. In November 2020, Hurricanes Eta and Iota hit Central America, and flooding and mudslides left 9,3 million victims fueling a spike in migration to the United States.

Jessica Rivas, 30, languishes after fainting during clashes between police officers and a northward-bound, 10,000-person-strong migrant caravan in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, on January 18, 2021. Her 4-years-old son Isaac bawled as his mother went down. Jessica, Isaac, and her older son Juan David, 12, traveled through Guatemala and Mexico to Piedras Negras, on the border with Texas.

A ten thousand people caravan moves by walk and on trucks towards a barricade made by Guatemalan police officers to prevent them from continuing their northward journey in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, on January 18, 2021.

A group of migrants lift a child onto a truck in Pamplona, in North Santander, Colombia, on October 10, 2018. The photographer was interviewing and photographing these families when a nearby woman told a truck driver had agreed to transport them to Bucaramanga. A religious fanatic, the woman insisted that they prayed before leaving, yelling at them that their condition depended on their sins and their faith in Venezuelan socialis

María Maricela Tomás Aguillón, 21, attends the funeral of her cousin, Santa Cristina García, and fellow villagers Rivaldo Jiménez Ramírez and Iván Gudiel Pablo in Tuilelén, Comitancillo, Guatemala, on March 14, 2021. Santa Cristina García, 20, was trying to reach the U.S. to save money for surgery to correct her sister’s cleft palate. As the news of the massacre spread in the U.S., donors raised funds for García’s sister’s surgery.

A man holds his daughter while hiding from the police in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, on January 18, 2021. After Guatemalan security forces tried to break up a 10,000-person-strong caravan, in a bid to stop their northward journey, people dispersed into the woods and continued to walk in smaller groups.

A Customs and Border Patrol officer registers unaccompanied children as they enter the United States in La Joya, Texas, on May 28, 2021. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, 2021 was a record year for crossings of unaccompanied minors. By March, 8,500 children and teenagers who had crossed the border alone were being housed in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services, while another 3,500 were waiting at Border Patrol stations for beds to open up.

Police arrest a Venezuelan boy accused of theft in Maicao, La Guajira, Colombia, on August 15, 2018. Poverty and the precarious living conditions in migrants’ settlements and on the streets of border towns push some into criminal survival strategies. The pandemic stoked social instability in Colombia, and xenophobia is rising. Colombian citizens are concerned about COVID-19 spreading as migrants gather in the streets, at informal camps, and on migration routes.

A man leads a group of migrants across the Rio Grande while an American soldier points to a docking point in Roma, Texas, on May 28, 2021. The photographer used a light source to document nocturnal crossings. People said they had spent several days or weeks on isolated farms on the Mexican side, waiting for the traffickers to move them across the river. The boatman said he was paid 20 dollars for each person on his dinghy.

Maicao, La Guajira, Colombia August 15, 2018 Police arrested a Venezuelan migrant accused of theft. The poverty and the precarious living conditions in the migrants’ settlements and the border towns’ streets push some into criminal survival strategies.

Roma, Texas, United States May 28, 2021 A man leads a group of migrants across the Rio Grande while an American soldier points to an easy docking point.

Busca, Italia
www.nicolofilipporosso.com

Nicolò Filippo Rosso is an Italian documentary photographer based in Colombia, Central America, Mexico, and the United States. He graduated in Literature from the University of Turin in Italy.
He works on personal projects related to the migrations in the Americas, the impact of fossil fuel on climate change, and the struggle for survival of abandoned indigenous communities.
His work has received important recognitions such as the World Press Photo, the Getty Images Editorial Grant, the W. Eugene Smith Fund, the International Photography Award, the World Report Award and it is regularly published by American and European media.
In addition to his personal and editorial work for magazines, newspapers, and NGOs, he frequently lectures on photography and journalism at universities in Colombia, Europe, and the United States.