The government of Colombia announced today that it was granting citizenship to approximately 24,000 children born there to Venezuelan parents, the latest in a set of measures taken by Bogota to face the unprecedented influx of Venezuelans into the country.
Speaking in a press conference, Colombian president Ivan Duque said that the measure was necessary because the children who will benefit form it “deserve attention and love”, specially because “they are not responsible for the tragedy that Venezuela is living”.
The measure will apply to any child born of Venezuelan parents after August 19 2015.
During the press conference, Duque said:
Today, Colombia shows the world once more that while we have fiscal limitations, we know how to turn fraternity into solidarity, and that it is best to stand up in the defense of fraternity in the midst of a crisis of this nature.
Last week, the Colombian government announced that it estimated that there are 1.4 million Venezuelans living in Colombia now, having fled socio-economic collapse and repression in Venezuela.
Prior to today’s announcement, the Colombian constitution only granted citizenship to children born from at least one Colombian parent.
PNB Arrests, Mock Actors
The National Bolivarian Police (NBP) arrested four actors in Caracas last night after allegedly finding the men in possession of police uniforms. The actors belong to a “micro-theater” which stages plays in the Ciudad Tamanaco shopping centre.
A post on the Instagram page of the company with which the men worked showed that two of them were part of a production called “Two Cops in a Hurry”:
This morning, the PNB’s Twitter account mocked the men in a tweet announcing their arrest:
NOW THEY’RE REALLY IN A HURRY! For the crime of Usurping a Civil Servant’s Job [sic], four people who tried to stage a play in the Ciudad Tamanaco Shopping Centre in Chacao [Caracas] while wearing [National Bolivarian Police] uniforms have been arrested.
In a second tweet, the PNB shared an image that appears to show the play’s actors in character:
[The actors] wanted to ridicule and distort the real work of the police
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