International funding for refugees falls short despite a new spike in Venezuelans fleeing their country.
By Foreign Policy – Robbie Gramer
Sep 01, 2022
The United Nations appealed to member states late last year to provide $1.79 billion to support Venezuelan refugees across Latin America, but as of this week, it has only received around $226 million – or 13 percent – of the funds it says it needs to tackle the crisis, according to U.N. data.
More than 6.8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since it fell into a protracted political crisis and economic freefall eight years ago, and humanitarian organizations warn that number is expected to rise further in the coming months.
The gap in funding stands in sharp contrast to the refugee crisis in Europe, where the United States and its European allies have pledged tens of billions of dollars to support the comparable number of Ukrainian refugees – around 7 million people – who have fled elsewhere in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
“It’s sad to see we have two crises with roughly the same number of refugees impacted, and the response for Ukraine has been so overwhelmingly positive … while in Venezuela, there’s real donor fatigue,” said Rachel Schmidtke, an expert on Latin América who works for the Refugees International advocacy group. “Although people aren’t fleeing war [in Venezuela], they are fleeing a dictatorship and a country that was in economic freefall for many years.”
Human rights watchdogs have accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government of sweeping political repression and human rights violations, including jailing political opponents, torturing detainees, harassing pro-democracy activists and journalists, and violently cracking down on protesters. “The exodus of Venezuelans fleeing repression and the humanitarian emergency represents the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history,” Human Rights Watch wrote in its latest annual report on Venezuela.
Refugee flows from Venezuela somewhat abated in 2021 after Maduro’s government took some steps to try and reverse the country’s economic collapse, including halting onerous foreign currency controls. But ongoing political repression by Maduro, coupled with new economic woes from the coronavirus pandemic and global economic slowdown, have led to a new surge in Venezuelans fleeing their country this year. An estimated 1,700 Venezuelans per day are now fleeing their country despite Maduro’s claim that the economy is growing – totaling at least 753,000 new refugees since last November, according to new data from Latin American countries receiving them. Neighboring Colombia has taken in an estimated 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees, for example, while another 1.2 million refugees have fled to Perú.
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Read More: Foreign Policy – Venezuela’s Forgotten Refugee Crisis Rivals Ukraine’s
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