Situation in the Old City of Bogota after the police “took” the neighborhood “El Bronx”

Early in the morning on 28th of May 2016 more than 2.500 police officers and heavily armed soldiers participated in a raid in Bogota´s neighborhood “El Bronx”, nicknamed for its comparison to the famous neighborhood in New York City. The new mayor Enrique Peñalosa decided to intervene in the district in response to complaints of drug-trafficking, drug-consumption and crime that takes place just a few blocks away from the Palacio de Nariño, the presidential palace. As a result of the intervention about 1,000 people, mainly homeless and drugaddicted people, were removed from the Bronx and/or offered psychosocial treatment.

As a consequence of this happening we asked ourselves two simple questions: Does the displacement of so many homeless people affect the safety of our clients who stay in the city center? Does it affect the operation of our city tours in the Old City Candelaria? After many discussions with our staff and guides we came to the conclusion that at this moment we do not see any problems to accomodate our clients in the city center and the operation of our tours. One important reason is that the intervention took place about 600 meters away from Plaza Bolivar, the most interesting place in Bogota for the international tourism in Bogota. Besides that we noticed more police presence, especially at the touristic sites of the Candelaria. Furthermore some of our colleagues live in the city center and they have not noticed any changes regarding the security situation. But like in any other big city in Latin America you should keep the usual safety precautions in mind.

Please contact Stephan (Stephan.stober@nepuno.org) or Christopher (Christopher.romahn@neptuno.org) if you have any more doubts about the topic.