Colombia to grant legal status to Venezuelan migrants

Move to grant protection status for 10 years described as the most important humanitarian gesture' in the region since the 1980s

When Beritza Colina, 30, began the month-long march from Caracas, Venezuela's capital, to Bogota, the capital city of neighbouring Colombia, she was expecting the same frosty reception that thousands of her compatriots had received when they too crossed the border without papers.

The near-900-mile journey with her five children was arduous, but without work in Caracas and such a large a family to raise, Colina saw little choice. In Venezuela we couldn't survive ... we had to come here," she said outside a clinic for migrants in Bogota, having slept rough on the streets since crossing into Colombia at the end of last year. We just hoped our situation would get easier."