“Don’t Leave Anyone Outside”, A refugee poem by Mr.Pakdi Rattanaphol

Mr. Pakdi Rattanaphon, a poet who raises awareness of refugee crisis through poetry. He is a newspaper columnist and he writes regularly for Matichon weekly magazine. The below poem is published in Matichon asking the readers to donate to help refugees.

Mr. Pakdi Rattanaphol (author)

M.R. Chiravadee Chuthasmit (translator)

 

The Tachira River serves as the borderline between the two countries:

Venezuela and Colombia

linked together with the international bridge that has imprinted the feet of more than 1,400,000 refugees emigrating into Colombia

and almost 4,000,000 refugees into other Latin American countries.

 

The Republic of Bolivar Venezuela has been facing economic and basic infrastructural crisis

due to the government’s administration failure

leading to crumbling society with more severe results than war atrocities.

 

Disasters have arisen in all aspects at the highest degree in the history of the Latin American continent.

The Venezuelan people are still flowing out of the country like stream currents.

Inflation has skyrocketed as high as 2,000,000 percent.

An amount of 2,000 bolivar is worth merely one baht.

A German artist used bolivar banknotes instead of papers to paint pictures for sale.

Cost of child delivery stands at as high as 120,000,000 bolivar.

 

Children,pregnant women,disabled,elderly and patients

all have fallen prey to brutality and hunger

due to lack of basic factors of living.

The people have been emigrating across the border

to seek new opportunities in their neighboring countries.

 

Elena with her brain-damaged daughter just hoped to see a doctor to give medical treatment to her little child.

Mardi  was headed for her child delivery in a hospital.

Childbearing mother held her kid so tight while singing on the pavement for money.Francis sold her sleeky25centimeter-long hair for40,000 peso*

 

Mali left her aging father in a shelter below the footbridge.

She waved her hand to say goodbye while crossing the river.

Juan Carlos left his 9-year-old daughter with grandmother.

Each of them might not know whether they could be able to return.

Just a thought of longing for one another..the tears were falling.

 

Angeles has got five children,

obliged to leave her husband who was suffering from cancer in a deserted house with no electricity thus living cold there.

She only asked for a chance to work because getting a job would mean living and existing.

 

and we all are fellow human beings,aren’t we?

Why did her children have to scavenge for food leftover

with their skinny limbs without flesh.

 

The past karma has worsen the situation.

Immediately as the refugees were crossing the Tachira River,

all lives fell in danger from a group of strong macho men standing on every corner of the road

waiting for abducting children to sell their body organs,

or luring them for drug trafficking in Peru,

forced young girls to be prostitutes

or raped and killed.

At each step ,of the way,they had to take extreme care .

 

The great mankind’s emigration to seek refuge

still imprints the refugees’ feet on the bridge across the border over the raging

Tachira River everyday .

 

Are you living in your warm house?

Please don’t leave anyone outside.**

24/01/2020

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Please donate to help refugees with UNHCR.