Argentina and 12 other countries agree financial assistance for Venezuelan migrants

Delegates from thirteen countries in Latin America and the UN began Monday in Quito a two-day meeting to evaluate international financial support for joint badistance plans to some 3.5 million Venezuelans who fled the crisis in their country. The works are part of the third international technical appointment of the so-called "Process of Quito", which the Ecuadorian government encourages at the regional level to coordinate its efforts in the face of the migratory wave.

Previously, the region was already committed to defining mechanisms to regularize migrants in the face of difficulties related to the absence of travel documents. The humanitarian problem for the Venezuelan diaspora calls for regional solutions, said the Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Valencia, during the meeting during which participants from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay and Peru Uruguay

Venezuela, which had been discarded from the previous two meetings, is now represented by René de Sola, ambbadador in Quito appointed by the head of the parliamentarian Juan Guaidó, recognized as interim president of Venezuela by more than 50 countries led by the United States . The countries of America, Europe and Asia, as well as the United Nations and the financial institutions, committed in November to $ 550 million in Ecuador to serve approximately 250,000 Venezuelans recorded you have received.

According to the UN, Some 3.5 million Venezuelans (10% of the population) left their country in the past four years, it has been affected by the worst crisis in recent history: hyperinflation, shortages of commodities and serious shortcomings in medical care and public services, coupled with institutional conditions and political persecution. The UN estimates that by the end of 2019, they total 5.3 million people, which constitutes the biggest humanitarian crisis in Latin America in times of peace.

In 2018, more than one million Venezuelans entered Ecuadorian territory and most continued their journey south, said Valencia. "Ecuador hopes that the economic and structural crisis in Venezuela will soon find a political solution, without the use of force, by peaceful and democratic means for all Venezuelans," said the Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He added that such an exit was to take place with "free and transparent elections as soon as possible".

S.D.