The United Nations warned on Friday "the patience" of Venezuela's neighbours is running out amid the continued mass exodus of people from the country, prompted by long-term social and economic unrest.
Migration is an accepted feature of life in Latin America, but the massive movement of people from Venezuala risks creating a crisis on a par with the European refugee crisis, warned the spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Joel Millman in Geneva.
"This is building to a crisis moment that we've seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean, and we have to start lining up priorities and funding and means to manage this as soon as we can," he said.
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"Patience is running out. I think it's a big, big number to have to assimilate. So when you see things, like countries contemplating passports only, we point out, as we did, that there are a lot of migrants, particularly teenagers and sometimes unaccompanied children, that may not have access to these documents."
According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, some 130,000 Venezuelans have applied for asylum so far this year, marking a sharp spike since 2014-2015, when applications were in the low thousands.
The development follows a joint appeal by the heads of the United Nations refugee and migration agencies on Thursday for greater international support to meet the most basic needs of those displaced.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), close to half a million have fled from Venezuela to Ecuador in 2018 alone.
Peru is also expecting its tally of Venezuelans to pass the 500,000 mark in coming weeks, according to media reports.
"We call for respect of refugees and people on the move in Latin America," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. "We are concerned about these recent events and the demonstrations against refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in some of the Latin American countries. Those increase stigmatisation of those who are forced to flee, they put at risk also the efforts for their integration. Solidarity is actually the key here."
APTN / Newshub.
