This Friday afternoon, September 22nd, in a protocolary event agreed between Colombian diplomats and Chavismo authorities, will be reopened the third Colombian consulate in Venezuela, as part of the gradual resumption of activities of all consular offices in the country.
Luz Dary Depablos // Correspondent lapatilla.com
Alejandro Mahé, Colombian Consul in San Antonio del Táchira, reported that starting next Monday, September 25th, all consular procedures and paperwork for Colombians residing in Venezuela will also restart at the consular offices in San Cristóbal.
“The reopening date was met as planned. We knew that after several years of closure we were going to have a lot of procedures backed up and especially a lot of uncertainty about requirements and what could or could not be accomplished,” stated Mahé about the backlogged documents yet to be processed at the San Antonio Consulate.
During the first month of reactivation of consular procedures, “the work capacity of officials was absolutely overwhelmed, we had a very high demand for passports, this was followed by a normal demand but a very high demand for registrations to obtain (Colombian) nationality,” said the Consul in San Antonio.
Likewise, he indicated that in the months of July and August there were more than 5,000 visitors to the consulate, while in the month of September the demand began to ebb, and remains on average at 120 people served every day.
After more than four years after the breakup of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Colombia, the requests that stand out among Colombians who returned to their country and are now coming to the border offices in Táchira State to be able to “apostille” (legalize/stamp) their documents.
He pointed out that the majority of applicants come from Valencia, Barinas, Barquisimeto and Caracas. In addition, he recalled that during the first week of September was also reopened the consulate in Maracaibo, where the offices are operating partially and only for the issuance of civil records, and the consular headquarters in Caracas could reopen its doors by the end of 2023.
Mahé considers the recent reopening of commercial flights to and from the “General Juan Vicente Gómez” airport to be positive, as it will serve for the direct mobilization of his compatriots who require processing documents.
For the protocolary event scheduled for today, only media sympathetic to Chavismo in Venezuela were summoned, unlike the reopening of the San Antonio consulate, where the media that always cover the border source were summoned.