Are we still doing that "open arms" thing?
The exodus of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a "crisis moment" comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.
Growing numbers are fleeing economic meltdown and political turmoil in Venezuela, where people scrounge for food and other necessities of daily life, threatening to overwhelm neighboring countries. Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward.
In Brazil, rioters this month drove hundreds back over the border. Peru this month tightened entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry passports instead of just national ID cards, though a judge in Ecuador on Friday rolled back a similar rule enacted there.
Describing those events as early warning signs, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Joel Millman, said funding and means of managing the outflow must be mobilized.
"This is building to a crisis moment that we've seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean," he told a news briefing.
On Thursday, the IOM and U.N. refugee agency UNHCR called on Latin American countries to ease entry for Venezuelans, more than 1.6 million of whom have left since 2015.
Peru's top immigration official, Eduardo Sevilla, said Peru will exempt some Venezuelans from the passport requirement, including parents with children seeking to join the rest of their family, pregnant women and the gravely ill.
But Sevilla said authorities would also be vigilant of attempts to evade the new rule by claiming refugee status.
"Is UNHCR going to take responsibility if that person commits a crime?" Sevilla said to Reuters on Friday. "Our priority is to contribute to security and internal order by clearly identifying people."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...aching-crisis-moment-u-n-agency-idUSKCN1L91E3
The exodus of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a "crisis moment" comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.
Growing numbers are fleeing economic meltdown and political turmoil in Venezuela, where people scrounge for food and other necessities of daily life, threatening to overwhelm neighboring countries. Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward.
In Brazil, rioters this month drove hundreds back over the border. Peru this month tightened entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry passports instead of just national ID cards, though a judge in Ecuador on Friday rolled back a similar rule enacted there.
Describing those events as early warning signs, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Joel Millman, said funding and means of managing the outflow must be mobilized.
"This is building to a crisis moment that we've seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean," he told a news briefing.
On Thursday, the IOM and U.N. refugee agency UNHCR called on Latin American countries to ease entry for Venezuelans, more than 1.6 million of whom have left since 2015.
Peru's top immigration official, Eduardo Sevilla, said Peru will exempt some Venezuelans from the passport requirement, including parents with children seeking to join the rest of their family, pregnant women and the gravely ill.
But Sevilla said authorities would also be vigilant of attempts to evade the new rule by claiming refugee status.
"Is UNHCR going to take responsibility if that person commits a crime?" Sevilla said to Reuters on Friday. "Our priority is to contribute to security and internal order by clearly identifying people."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...aching-crisis-moment-u-n-agency-idUSKCN1L91E3
