Lei­dys De­jong worked as a med­ical doc­tor in Venezuela for over a decade but like mil­lions of oth­er mi­grants, she fled in search of a bet­ter life.

To­day, De­jong, 33, is home­less on the streets of San Fer­nan­do, fac­ing con­stant abuse from oth­er home­less lo­cals. 

Guardian Me­dia’s pho­tog­ra­ph­er Rishi Ra­goonath spot­ted De­jong cry­ing while the oth­er va­grants shout­ed at her.

A cat and two dogs licked at her fin­gers while she sat cross-legged on a piece of card­board near the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice sta­tion.

“Get out from here. Why all of you Venez get back to Venezuela. We doh want all you here. Doh come around here,” one man shout­ed while an­oth­er said, “Why you don’t hush your mouth.”

De­jong, who speaks Eng­lish al­though not flu­ent­ly, said she left Venezuela with Eu­rope in mind as her fi­nal des­ti­na­tion. Be­fore be­com­ing stuck in Trinidad be­cause of the pan­dem­ic lock­down, De­jong had lived in Ciu­dad Bolí­var, for­mer­ly known as An­gos­tu­ra and St Thomas de Guyana, the cap­i­tal of Venezuela’s south­east­ern Bolí­var State. 

She said dur­ing her time in Trinidad she lived with a fam­i­ly at a house in Gas­par­il­lo. She took care of their ba­bies and al­so cared for an el­der­ly man, whilst work­ing part-time in a doc­tor’s of­fice.

How­ev­er, hours be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the State of Emer­gency, De­jong was dropped off on the streets.

All she had was a purse, her slip­pers and a bowl of food.

Not know­ing what to do, De­jong went to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where she knew she would get help.

In­stead, all she got was a pre­scrip­tion for med­i­cine that would help her sleep.

Oth­er home­less peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do, who recog­nised her plight, be­gan chas­ing her away.

She then went to the Prom­e­nade op­po­site the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion so that she could be safe if some­one at­tacked or ha­rassed her.

De­jong said, “I would like to live in Trinidad. I am on the street be­cause it is more safe and qui­et. I didn’t know where to go so I came to the po­lice. I don’t know what to do to get a lit­tle peace of mind.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port group Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine who spoke to De­jong. She told Ram­nar­ine that Eu­rope had been her fi­nal des­ti­na­tion. She said she worked as a med­ical doc­tor in Venezuela be­fore she came here. 

“It’s a fear that I had for a long time now that the pan­dem­ic will lead to home­less­ness and va­grancy among the Venezue­lan mi­grants in par­tic­u­lar. And now we are see­ing this,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She added, “Yes­ter­day, out­side my gate, a fam­i­ly of four came ask­ing for food and they too didn’t have any­where to stay. They slept out­side the hos­pi­tal for two days.”

Ram­nar­ine said an­oth­er fam­i­ly who came to col­lect food ham­pers of­fered the home­less fam­i­ly a place to stay.

Ram­nar­ine said there will be more des­ti­tu­tion if peo­ple did not ex­tend sup­port dur­ing the lock­down pe­ri­od.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist the mi­grant fam­i­lies can con­tact Ram­nar­ine at 687-8072.