There’s been a significant amount of violence in South America. Right now, many are concerned about safety in South America because of the ongoing crime and violence. The factors leading to the continuing crime and violence are drug trade, cartels, and the corruption of government. These factors lead to economic and political crises, which become an issue for citizens who live in the country. As this drastically increases across countries in South America, many citizens flee the country for the safety of their families and seek better opportunities in someplace else, which leads to the issue of an excessive number of refugees in different countries.

Venezuela has an overwhelming number of refugees who are leaving their home country to avoid facing the economic and political instability in their country and to seek better opportunities up North. Over 7.1 million Venezuelans have left the country, which leaves the population at 28 million and should decrease due to the inhumane conditions.

Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has taken the fundamental rights and freedom from citizens due to being corrupt. In addition to taking away freedom, inflation is high in a country where the minimum wage is $2, resulting in citizens not having enough to provide for their basic needs. Given these circumstances, this leads to an increased number of Venezuelans seeking refuge in foreign countries where they enter illegally and still struggle to settle in to do what’s best for themselves and their family.

Another country that has recently been spoken about is Ecuador. Recently, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, there was an incident on a live TV station while talking about daily news happening in the area. Armed men had stormed into the station and had reporters on the floor as hostages while they showed their weapons as well as explosives on live cameras. Many homes watching the news at the time were shocked about the situation, and the news had spread to the Ecuador police.

Many police officers, as well as military men, circled the building where the incident occurred, and when eventually storming inside, all 13 armed men were captured. It turned out that the incident had happened due to the president calling armed drug gangs terrorists, which resulted in a war against the Ecuadorian military and drug gangs who found themselves in Ecuador. The workers at the TV station were left in shock and fear, wanting to leave the country. Some took the incident as a sign to leave the country as it was a new peak in violence in an ongoing violent country.

In South America, conditions continue to worsen, political corruption increases, and there’s no other way of coping with such deteriorating conditions in refugees’ home countries than to flee and seek refuge someplace else.