MEGAN
JANETSKY

Venezuelan opposition members hang off of trucks loaded up resources purchased bu the U.S., chanting "yes we can" on Colombia-Venezuela border on February 23, 2019. Venezuelan opposition, with the support of the U.S., attempted to pass what they dubbed as "humanitarian aid" across the blockaded border crossings in Cúcuta, Colombia in a failed attempt to undermine the power of authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, but were met by violence from Venezuelan forces. It was just the latest episode in a long-running geopolitical battle in Venezuela.

Dainer Garcia, his pregnant wife and three children left Aragua, Venezuela with no money and are walking to Ecuador. They are among a growing number of Venezuelans fleeing the country by foot, walking hundreds of mines through extreme conditions. "In Venezuela, there isn't anything, there's not enough medicine for her to give birth, there's no help," Garcia said. 'I'm scared that the walk is going to hurt the baby, but we have to keep going."

Marifer Culfer Ortiz, a 19-year-old deminer, digs through jungle earth speckled with landmines in Caqueta, Colombia on March 12, 2019. The area is a former warzone where the countries military and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas clashed in a 50-year armed conflict, leaving behind explosive that haunt the communities they surround. Ortiz worked is among a group in the area working to clear her home of those mines.

Former rebel fighter for the Colombian guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Mirian Claro Moreno cradles her 2-year-old son Octavio in a reintegration camp on October 4, 2021.

The guerrilla signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, and thousands moved to temporary camps where they would begin the process to reintegrate into society. Five years later, the peace process is collapsing and families like Claro Moreno's live in deteriorated conditons.

Two women converse next to a window in Omar Ibn Al-Jattab Mosque on June 26, 2019 in the Venezuelan border city of Maicao, Colombia. The marble building is one of the biggest mosques in Latin America,  constructed by a diaspora of Lebanese migrants that migrated to the Caribbean to trade after being pushed out by war in their country. Now, the mosque sits almost empty as the city has been eclipsed by the migratory crisis in neighboring Venezuela.

Sofia and her grandchildren pose for a portrait inside her home in Zunil, Guatemala on March 14, 2020. Her daughter Daniela is among many Central American migrants who took out a large, high-stakes loan to migrate northward to the United States. If migrants don't make it to the U.S., they and their families are often thrust in vicious cycles of migration and debt that could cause them to lose everything they own in Guatemala.

Large construction machinery blows up dust along a recently built stretch of border barrier along the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Arizona on January 8, 2021 [Megan Janetsky/Al Jazeera]

Performers clad in royal blue feathers dance in unison in a stretching line  in Barranquilla, Colombia during the Caribbean coastal city's Carnaval celebration on March 12, 2019.

Esmeralda Ranjel, alias “Andrea,” changes her six-year-old daughter Greicy’s clothes outside their small living space in a reintegration camp for former guerrillas of the Colombian rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on October 3, 2021.

Venezuelan migrant Yulianis Rodriguez throws her head back in pain as she gives birth in a public hospital in Maicao, Colombia on May 5, 2019. The young migrant bites down on a towel in her mouth to help with the pain.