Yuleima Borja has lived in La Pista for five years. It’s the largest informal migrant settlement in the Americas.
In the 1980s, the 54-year-old fled the violence of Colombian guerrillas and settled in Venezuela. There, Borja made a life for herself: she became a business administrator and had her daughters. But the economic situation became unsustainable. She returned to Colombia in 2015 to sell candy on buses, using her earnings to pay for a room that she shared with her sister. But during the pandemic, they no longer had enough money to cover the rent.
“So, we decided to come here. I arrived with only a folding bed and a suitcase full of clothes. I had nothing else,” she sighs. She speaks with EL PAÍS while sitting in her home. It’s a small shack, covered with zinc panels. There are a couple of rooms and a kitchen.
Over the last decade, thousands of people like Borja have settled in La Pista, which is named after its location. In Spanish, one of the meanings of “pista” is “runway.” In this case, the informal settlement literally sits along a former runway at Maicao Airport, in northern Colombia. Most of the more than 9,000 inhabitants counted in the latest census are Venezuelan, but there are also Colombian returnees and Wayuu Indigenous people, native to both countries. They live on small plots of land near the mile-long former airfield. Some have homes made of sticks, bags and cardboard, while the luckiest residents live in houses that are covered with metal, to keep out the rain during the harsh winters.
Food is scarce. Water, even more so. In the mornings, some delivery workers cross the completely arid area with donkey-drawn carts. They carry a few gallons of drinking water, which they sell to homes or small informal shops. The precarious situation is particularly acute for children. Many small boys and girls work and face great risks, especially at night, as few homes have electricity and there’s no street lighting. According to local authorities, they’re easy prey for human-trafficking, forced recruitment and sexual exploitation.
Several years ago, to address these multiple needs, various NGOs settled in the area. A few months ago, there were up to 20 organizations located in the middle of the settlement, including UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Food Program, the International Organization for Migration, Save the Children, Medicare, and World Vision. Branch offices operated in the Temporary Solidarity Center (CTS), located in the middle of La Pista.
Today, however, the center is abandoned. All of the NGOs ceased their activities after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the closure of USAID — the U.S. aid agency — in January 2025, thus freezing the delivery of aid funds, which were essential for the work being conducted in communities such as La Pista.
Borja — in addition to being a resident — is the president of the settlement. La Pista is organized into 12 blocks, each with its own leader. They form a board and elect a president. The Colombian has held this position for over a year and has experienced firsthand the devastation caused by the withdrawal of humanitarian organizations.
“We feel very helpless. Before, when a person didn’t have access to healthcare, they were treated. Now, the hospital only responds if you’re dying. There was also space for bands, dancing, food and educational support for children. All of that’s gone,” she laments through tears.
This concern is also shared by Jorge Paz, the CTS coordinator and liaison between the community and NGOs. “The departure of these allies is deeply felt,” he says, standing in one of the center’s now-empty tents. The effects for many, he assures EL PAÍS, were immediate.
“For example, I have information that more women are prostituting themselves to provide food for their families. There’s a lot of hunger,” he explains. Some organizations continue to operate on a mobile basis and are able to address some cases, but not on the same scale as before.
The lack of financial support provided by NGOs has halted the progress some families had envisioned. This is the case of Rosa, a 44-year-old Venezuelan woman who prefers to keep her real name private. She’s been living in La Pista for seven years and, for the past three years, she’s been preparing homemade chicha — a Venezuelan rice-based drink — for her husband to sell outside a nearby school.
At the end of last year, she was enrolled in a Save the Children program to improve her sales skills. The initiative — which promised more than one million Colombian pesos (about $250) to boost her business — has since been shuttered. “We were very sad when they told us they wouldn’t be able to give us the money. I was going to buy a refrigerator,” she laments. Another 20 entrepreneurs were also affected.
For Rosa, Trump’s decision has another connotation. As a Venezuelan, she condemns the U.S. president’s view of her fellow citizens: “It’s unfair. Those of us who go to another country do so to get ahead, not to harm anyone. Everywhere we go, Venezuelans work hard. We’re not criminals. But he doesn’t listen to the cries of our people.”
Aid disappearing overnight
Colombia is the country in the region that has received the most development grants from the United States. According to data from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2024, the U.S. provided almost 70% of the humanitarian aid that Colombia received.
Now dozens of organizations have been forced to close, while those that remain active have had to reduce their staff and operations. The NGO Forum in Colombia estimates that 1,300 humanitarian workers have been laid off following Trump’s cuts.
María Mercedes Liévano, Save the Children’s country director, estimates that 40% of the budget planned for 2025 has disappeared. “Of 12 regional offices, we’ve had to close five. Furthermore, we no longer have a presence in six departments,” she noted, during a trip organized by the NGO to Maicao, the city where La Pista is based. “It’s painful, because we’d been implementing important initiatives and creating a very valuable network for the communities. Our operations disappeared overnight.” The NGO’s work in La Guajira — Colombia’s northernmost department and home to La Pista — has been weakened after the layoff of more than 30% of its staff.
The closure of USAID has also harmed international organizations such as UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency. The organization’s Colombia office recently warned of the risk of “losing years of progress” regarding the “protection and integration” of displaced peoples, due to a lack of funding. In a statement, UNHCR announced that it has been forced to “suspend essential services.” This will affect thousands of people, primarily internally displaced persons and Venezuelan migrants.
In La Pista, there are many migrants on the move, as well as commuter residents, who don’t reside in the settlement on a permanent basis. Xiomara (not her real name) is one of them. She’s an Indigenous Wayuu woman and lives in Las Huertas, a small municipality in Venezuela very close to the border with Colombia. She crosses the border to receive medical care. In her home country, she cannot access treatment for the anemia that she suffers from. She also seeks treatment in Colombia for “other illnesses” that cause her to face frequent episodes of dizziness and vomiting. When she’s in Colombia, Xiomara stays with her sister’s family. Her brother-in-law makes money however he can, be it by working as a barber, or as a cell phone technician.
Jorge Paz explains that many of these commuter residents haven’t returned to La Pista. “As they realize that they’re no longer going to be receiving the benefits that the NGOs used to provide — and as they don’t have jobs in the community — they’ve had to leave. Every day, I hear about families who have sold their shacks because they’re unable to support themselves.” Therefore, he predicts, the population will decline further if the NGO’s don’t resume their activities.
No governmental authorities reacted when some families began moving onto the old airport’s land 10 years ago. The rapid growth of makeshift settlement has posed a challenge for the administration. The mayor of Maicao, Miguel Aragón, openly admits that the city “doesn’t have the capacity” to care for migrants. He emphasizes that the withdrawal of international NGOs has been “disastrous” and is “very regrettable.”
When asked if there’s a contingency plan, Aragón responds by noting that his office has “knocked on the doors” of the federal government, led by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. “The assistance has been almost nonexistent. They tell us they’re working on ‘building programs,’ but so far they’ve only given us some trucks to distribute water,” he maintains.
The legal situation of La Pista is another thorny issue. Residents live in a legal limbo. Although the settlement doesn’t comply with land use regulations, evicting the residents would be daunting and highly unpopular. There’s also no solid relocation plan. Aragón says that he doesn’t feel “willing to remove people” from their homes. The mayor’s proposal is to modify the regulations to regularize the neighborhood’s status and, ultimately, provide access to public services. If the proposal goes ahead, the regulations will also help more than 40 other smaller settlements across the city.
This vision brings some comfort to the residents of La Pista. For Yuleima Borja, the talk of legalization is a victory, but she acknowledges that the road is still long. “If we’re talking about dreams, I’d love to see houses with proper building materials, green areas, schools, health centers and recreational spaces.” But with all the NGOs and humanitarian workers having left the area, Borja emphasizes, her dream now seems farther from reality than ever.
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