Fleeing the political, economic and humanitarian crisis in their country, Venezuelans have arrived in Spain in their thousands, some of them penniless, others so rich they are buying sumptuous flats. Fran Leal, 36, came to Spain from Maracay in northern Venezuela two months ago with his wife and two children. “Do you have a small suitcase? I’m going to Toledo, I’ve found a job,” he asks as he enters the Casa Venezuela, an association that helps struggling Venezuelans in Madrid. An electrician, he is going to the city south of Madrid to work illegally for six months. “I don’t have a choice as I don’t yet have ID papers and I have no more savings,” he says, as the crisis in Venezuela deepens with opposition leader Juan Guaido’s self-proclamation as interim president. Unlike Leal, Juan Leonardo Lopez has not found a job since he arrived three months ago. “Before the crisis, I wasn’t a millionaire but I lived fine, I had a great car and everything I needed,” he says at a Venezuelan opposition protest in Madrid. He says he saw children die of dehydration in the hospital in Maracay where he worked. Asylum-seekers Spain’s statistics agency says some 255,000 Venezuelans have settled in the country. But that figure is likely to be closer to 300,000 if illegal immigrants are taken into account, according to Tomas Paez, head of the Venezuelan Diaspora Observatory. Venezuelan asylum requests have nearly doubled in Spain over the year, with close to 20,000 in 2018, according to the interior ministry. But only 29 were successful last year, the ministry says, as it is hard for those who migrate for economic reasons to get asylum. As a result, Madrid has started giving some Venezuelans humanitarian visas. At the other end of the scale, many rich Venezuelans have also emigrated to Spain over the past year to escape the crisis and insecurity. Cesar, a 42-year-old businessman who declined to give his surname, arrived in Madrid in 2014 with his wife and daughter after an armed group tried to kidnap his brother. “We lived permanently with bodyguards, we would move around in armoured cars. We couldn’t go out in the evenings,” he says. Published in Daily Times, February 11th 2019.