For almost three months, he waited alongside more than fellow military defectors for the revolution to begin. But it never did. Cancino and his comrades were given eight days to leave the hotels and find somewhere else to stay. This was something very poorly done, very poorly organized.
Their stay in Colombia has encountered numerous issues, including the Venezuelan opposition often being late paying their share of the hotel bill, several defectors recounted, which led to them getting booted with their luggage into the streets outside one hotel until the debt was covered.
The United Nations refugee agency, meanwhile, has balked at spending money on a small group of politically fraught men in the face of a vast migration crisis. As a result of the change in policy, the defectors have lost their asylum seeking status and have been told to find a civilian job like the thousands of other Venezuelans living in Colombia, or to leave the country altogether.
He escaped from a Caracas base, and rode his motorcycle overnight to dart across the border and swear allegiance to his new commander-in-chief, Guaido, who aimed to use US-supplied humanitarian aid at the border as a way to break Maduro's grip on the military.
That plan collapsed into disorder and violence , but Guaido tried again in April, calling for the military to abandon Maduro. That uprising fizzled after just two days of fighting on the streets of Caracas. More than 3. In almost every Colombian city, Venezuelan families sleep in public places. Regional leaders have insisted that the exodus will only grow until Maduro gives up power and opens the way for dramatic reform and international intervention.
