The city center of Tumbes, Peru March 3, 2019. Tumbes is a town on the border between Ecuador and Peru. Peru recieved an estimated 635,000 Venezuelan migrants as of March 2019 as Venezuelans flee shortages in necessities, runaway inflation and political unrest.

The exodus of refugees from Venezuela marks the largest mass migration recorded in the Western Hemisphere, with at least 3 million people leaving the country over the past four years.


Hundreds of thousands have crossed more than 2,000 miles of Colombia and Ecuador, on foot, bus, and car, seeking the relative stability of life in Peru. Thousands of people have crossed into Peru through the border town of Tumbes. Some remain there, and many seek to move on to the capital city of Lima.

Genesis Pacheco, 20, looks down as her baby moves in her belly at the Centros Binacionales de Atención en Frontera border station between Ecuador and Peru in Tumbes, Peru March 3, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Hector Dávila plays with his son, Mathias Dávila, whose name is tattoed on his arm, at the Centros Binacionales de Atención en Frontera border station between Ecuador and Peru in Tumbes, Peru March 3, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Victor Abreo looks back at the rest of his group while they go from bus station to bus station, looking tickets to Lima they can afford shortly after arriving in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

The city center of Tumbes, Peru March 3, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Norma Altana Vaz shows the money she made after a day selling quail eggs on the street in Tumbes, Peru March 3, 2019. It was about 20 soles, less than seven American dollars.

Venezuelan migrant Eudimor Fabiola Pacheco, 9, wipes her mouth after eating a pastry in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

A large statue of Jesus in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

Martha Alejandro, left, and Montilla González, right, set up a "friendly space" for Venezuelan migrants' children to stay in for part of the day while their parents sell things on the street in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

A volunteer at a "friendly space" for Venezuelan migrants' children reaches out to one of the children in her care in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

Sister Miriam Loaiza Guzmán inspects the home of a group of Venezuelan migrants in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Luis Miguel Flores Parras sits on his mattress on the floor as one of his roommates comes home in a shanty town area of Tumbes, Peru, a city on the border between Peru and Ecuador March 4, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Evelier, 10, leaves the home he shares with several other migrants in Tumbes, Peru March 4, 2019.

Adriano Mauricio, 6, eats watermelon and plays in front of his family in the Comas district of Lima, Peru March 6, 2019.

Venezuelan migrant Faídis Castillo holds her daughter in a migrant shelter where they were staying in Lima, Peru March 5, 2019.

A young Venezuelan girl cries on her bed during her first night in a migrant shelter in Lima, Peru March 5, 2019. Her older sister said that she had been anxious and was crying because their mother had left the shelter to gather supplies.

Venezuelan migrant Keila Moncada pulls back the curtain to look out onto the street during a sewing class in Cleofé Jauregui's home in Lima.