In March 2021, the bodies of 13 migrants were returned to their village in Guatemala wrapped in the national flags. It was the inverse of the journey they had made in January when they had left the arid mountains of Comitancillo for the Texas border to find a job. Once in the United States, each would have paid the over 11 thousand dollars debt contracted with a trafficker, a "coyote," and sent money to their families. There were 16 of them in all, allegedly killed by Mexican police in Tamaulipas state. Their bodies were found calcined, impossible to be recognized, except by a DNA test. Twelve officers have been charged with homicide. Their funerals were an explosion of grief. Relatives, friends, and community members marched along dirt roads to crowded cemeteries, carrying photos of the dead while marching bands played until the end of the ceremony. After the funerals, many of them would start another journey in search of a better life.

La Guajira, in Northern Colombia, is one of the country’s most remote and impoverished regions, and is home to more than 270,000 Wayuu ‐Colombia’s largest indigenous community. Abandoned by government officials and suffering from the effects of political corruption and environmental contamination, their survival is increasingly at risk. The Guajira is also home to one of the world’s largest open‐pit coal mines, Cerrejon. Its huge operations of drilling the land, the daily explosions and its high demand of water have contributed to generate profound changes and impacted both the environment and the people. Over the past decades droughts lasted longer and the streams that were feeding the aquifers and the wells Wayuu use to access water got drier, making any kind of meaningful farming impossible. This is a deadly resource conflict that threatens the survival of the Wayuu, exposed to extreme poverty, thirst and environmental degradation.

At the border with Colombia, a continuous flow of migrants from Venezuela crosses the line every day. A political and socio-economic crisis in Venezuela, from 2016 onwards, led to an increasing outflow of migrants from the country. Venezuelans said they were compelled to leave for reasons of insecurity and violence, lack of access to food, medicine and essential services, and loss of income due to the political situation. According to the UNHCR, by October 2019 approximately 4.5 million Venezuelans had left the country, of which 1.6 million were in Colombia. Others had moved through Colombia before going on to surrounding countries. More than half of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia lacked regular status, and so had no access to health, education or legal employment. Charity organizations and NGOs helped supply people with medical attention and food, but many ended up in informal settlements or living on the streets.

Putumayo, Colombia Between 2012 and 2015 I travelled to Putumayo, a Colombian department settled in the Amazon basin. I went to take part in the rituals of yagè and, as a photographer, to capture a story. The yagè is the mysterious cornerstone of the life and the traditional medicine of the people of Putumayo. It is a vine able to cure spiritual and physical sicknesses. Since my first visit I continued to return several times, captivated by the indigenous medical practices and by the healing effects of yagè. I am an independent documentary photographer living in Bogotá, Colombia. My purpose is to access a deeper understanding of ancient healing practices.

The survival of the Wayuu, the largest indigenous community in Colombia, is under threat. Thousands of children have died and more lives are in danger as a result of the exploitation of land and misallocated water resources.They live below the poverty line and struggle daily to survive in their harsh surroundings. According to Shipia Wayuu organization, 4700 Wayuu children have died in the past five years. In December, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights publicly stated that the Colombian government must take measures to protect the human rights of the native Wayuu community and to stop the avoidable deaths of its members.