Indigentes All Over

Homeless drug addicts pass the hours away on the median of Carrera 10 south of San Victorino.

When thousands of police invaded El Bronx this May, they discovered a place of horrors. Crack addicts, child crack addicts, prostitutes of all ages, torture chambers, and even murder victims, buried and forgotten beneath the buildings.

However, what might have been a new life for the addicts and criminals in the bronx, who are also

Residents of El Bronx. (Photo: Semana)

victims, has not come to pass. According to news reports and people who work with addicts, many Bronx residents were bussed to neighboring towns, where they were just dumped on the street, or dropped off on the banks of the Rio Bogotá.

Of course, many addicts reject assistance, so social workers' jobs aren't easy. But now, complain residents of neighborhoods like San Bernardino, located just south of Tercer Milenio Park, the drug addicts camp on their doorsteps. Businesspeople complain about addicts sleeping and defecating in front of their doorways and have marched in protest to Plaza Bolivar.

Permitting a criminal district in the city's center, just a few blocks from City Hall and the presidential palace was intolerable. But now things may be worse, both for the Bronx residents, who lost their homes and community, and neighbors, who now feel as tho they're living in El Bronx.

The 'good' news? Just as before the Bronx there was El Cartucho, sooner or later the same population will settle someplace new and establish a new 'Bronx.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours