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Uprooted by Brazil floods, foreign refugees 'start all over again'

Tens of countless Haitians and Venezuelans who discovered sanctuary in southern Brazil after escaping hunger, violence and natural disasters are being required once more to reconstruct lives now wrecked by record flooding in Rio Grande do Sul state.

Reginald Descilong left Haiti after he lost family and good friends in the terrible 2010 earthquake. He got to Brazil three years later, crossing Central America on foot and by bus. Today, the 39-year-old and his better half and three daughters are in a. public shelter in the swamped state capital Porto Alegre.

It appears that disaster is always chasing us. I got here however. the issues don't stop. We lost whatever in our home. underwater, and we can't even return there by boat, he said.

I don't understand where I'm going now. We need to start all over. again, he informed .

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. ( UNHCR) has information on 43,000 refugees residing in the state,. consisting of 29,000 Venezuelans and 12,000 Haitians.

Rio Grande do Sul was among the top three states to get. refugees in a federal humanitarian program that transferred. migrants running away Venezuela on Brazil's northern border.

Numerous, like Descilong, got steady tasks with full advantages. Over 14,000 refugees found official work in Rio Grande do. Sul from 2011 to 2019, more than any other state, according to. data from Brazil's Justice Ministry.

The most typical home for the state's refugees has been in. the Sarandi neighborhood on the north side of Porto Alegre,. which was the most wrecked by flooding after a dike collapsed.

More than 26,000 Sarandi locals with homes undersea are. now in numerous shelters in the city. Numerous left whatever behind. as they escaped the increasing floodwaters, including documents now. lost permanently, raising extra concerns for the immigrants.

Venezuelan Carina Gonzalez, 27, needed to leave a knapsack with. her documents and those of her 11-year-old child when she. left her house in chest-deep water.

My spouse informed me to let go of the backpack or my pet. I. wasn't going to leave my canine, so I let go of the knapsack with. my files, Gonzalez recalled. We are immigrants and we. can't do anything without a file, she included.

Many people have actually lost the files they had, their. migration documents, their provisional ID that will need to be. reissued so they do not remain undocumented in Brazil, stated. UNHCR official Silvia Sander.

Carina and her spouse Xavier said their tasks are safe, for. now, but they are worried about getting to operate in a city where. downtown streets are still under water.

They crossed into Brazil in 2018, running away political tensions. and recession in surrounding Venezuela. The floods have. thrust them into turmoil again.

We don't even know where we are going. We have no. location right now, said Xavier.