The Double Crisis: Insecurity and Humanitarian Plight at the Colombia-Venezuela Border

Drawing on her book Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War (Oxford University Press, 2019) and her latest research findings, Annette Idler reveals why the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands are enabling crucial but largely unacknowledged interactions between Venezuela’s devastating crisis and ongoing political violence in Colombia. She discusses how the so-called border effect has facilitated violence, undermined trust relationships, attracted numerous violent non-state groups including conflict actors, drug cartels, and gangs, and obscured the nuanced realities of multiple insecurities. Failure to tackle these issues could have serious long-term implications for stability in the region. This makes long-term plans for sustainable peace and security across and along the border an urgent necessity.