LA FORTALEZA, Colombia (AFP)-They fled hunger in Venezuela only to find poverty and violence across the border in Colombia — but for Franklin Petit and his family, this life of hardship is still better than their old one.

Since 2018, they have lived in La Fortaleza, a violence-plagued border region, alongside other families in a makeshift community of dusty streets and self-built brick and zinc houses with dirt floors.

For many in the community, there was initial elation upon hearing of the January 3 US ouster of authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, stirring hope that they may finally be able to return home.

But the optimism did not last long as Maduro’s cronies were left in charge and Venezuela faces an uncertain future with Washington claiming control of its oil.

“We’re not thinking about going back yet because it’s going to take a while for the country to settle,” Petit, a 55-year-old construction worker, told AFP two weeks after Maduro’s toppling.

For now, it appears things in Venezuela are “the same…with the only difference that they took the leader,” he added.

Petit and other Venezuelans trapped in border communities say they are grateful for their life in Colombia despite the struggles.

Their neighborhoods are battered by the gang war raging in Colombia’s Catatumbo region — a hotbed of drug crops and cocaine labs violently contested by fighters of the ELN and Frente 33 guerrilla groups and Tren de Aragua cartel.

La Fortaleza’s residents refused to discuss the conflict out of fear of reprisal.

Without passports or money, most cannot leave the violence-plagued area they say still offers a better life than crisis-riddled Venezuela, which has seen eight million people flee economic ruin and political repression over the past decade.

“I wanted to keep going to the United States, but without money…and without a passport, I ended up staying here,” said Imer Montes, 43, another resident.

– Change ‘will come’ –

Petit’s wife, Nellisbeth Martinez, 42, broke down in tears as she recounted the “extreme poverty” and hunger that drove her family from Venezuela.

The couple has two children and look to their host country to provide the best possible education for the girls — the youngest of whom was born in Colombia four years ago.

In La Fortaleza, the couple’s oldest daughter Frainellys, 11, is the pride of her family.

She is finishing primary school and learning how to play the flute — all things that would have been impossible in the oil city of Cabimas, near Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, where the family had fled from in desperation.

Luisana Serrano, a 34-year-old former nursing aide who now works as a baker to make ends meet, also fled Venezuela in 2018 with her husband and four under-nourished children.

“My whole family is over there in Venezuela, and honestly, it’s tough. Really, really tough, everything that’s happening there. All the hardships they’re facing…all the oppression.”

Serrano also recalled that in Venezuela, a week’s salary earned by her husband could only buy a day’s worth of food.

Now in Colombia, the family — with three new additions — eats three meals a day.

Serrano says she is grateful to US President Donald Trump for removing Maduro, though she realizes change won’t happen overnight.

“But I know it will come,” she said.