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PERU-VENEZUELA-MIGRATION
Venezuelans rush to Peru to beat passport deadline
TUMBES, Peru, Aug 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Days before Peru was set to tighten
its border controls, Venezuelan migrants dashed to get into the country
Thursday as new passport rules threatened to leave thousands stranded in
Ecuador or Colombia.
In Tumbes, on the Peruvian side of the border with Ecuador, lines of people
waited to have their papers checked, surrounded by banana plantations and
sweating from the tropical climate.
Many had traveled on foot, but they had to accelerate their progress after
Peru’s announcement last week that it would implement stricter border
controls from this Saturday.
Following Ecuador’s lead, Peru decided it will only allow in Venezuelan
migrants in possession of a passport.
The problem is that only around half of the Venezuelans heading south to
escape poverty and economic crisis are carrying passports, according to
Colombia’s migration director, Christian Kruger. The other half have ID
cards.
Ecuador acted after more than half a million Venezuelans entered the
country of less than 17 million people since the start of 2018.
Peru has also been struggling to cope as Venezuelans flow into the country
at an average rate of 2,500 per day — although the United Nations Refugee
Agency says that number has spiked recently.
Earlier this month a record 5,100 people crossed in a single day.
– Weary and hungry –
Peru’s migration superintendent, Eduardo Sevilla, said on Thursday that
“there are already 400,000” Venezuelans in the country and if they continue
flooding over the border at the same rate, there will be “half a million by
the beginning of November.”
Many queueing at the border only left Venezuela on foot at the beginning of
August. They’ve already travelled 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), but those
who get through face another 1,200-kilometer journey to the Peruvian capital
Lima.
Local churches handed out food to the weary and hungry migrants as they
waited.
Meanwhile, Peru has called for calm, saying the number of Venezuelans
affected by the new policy will be relatively minor.
“No-one’s talking about the closing of borders,” said Interior Minister
Mauro Medina.
He said Peru is improving its “migration control for reasons of order and
security,” adding that “80 percent of Venezuelans who come into the country
do so with a passport.”
Kruger criticized the measures announced by Colombia’s two southern
neighbors, admitting he was “worried about the consequences.”
“Asking for a passport isn’t going to stop migration because they’re
leaving their country not out of choice but out of necessity,” he said.
The UN says more than two million Venezuelans have fled the country since
the current crisis began in 2014.
Under President Nicolas Maduro’s leadership, Venezuela is suffering from
hyperinflation, shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicine, and
failing public services.
– ‘Multilateral action’ –
Colombia’s Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said earlier this week
the country would petition the UN to appoint a special envoy “to coordinate a
multilateral action to combat this humanitarian crisis” at next month’s
general assembly in New York.
Ecuador said it would organize a meeting of 13 Latin American countries to
discuss the migrant crisis.
Kruger, though, called on Ecuador and Peru to work with Colombia, which has
granted temporary citizenship to more than 800,000 Venezuelans, “in a
coordinated manner, employing similar policies to address this phenomenon.”
Venezuela is in a fourth straight year of recession with double-digit falls
in its Gross Domestic Product, while the International Monetary Fund says
inflation will reach a mind-boggling one million percent this year.
Industry is operating at only 30 percent, hit hard by the oil price crash
since 2014 in a country that earns 96 percent of its revenue from crude.
Maduro and his government have implemented a number of measures recently to
try to boost the economy including a redenomination of the bolivar, a
loosening of foreign capital rules and a massive increase in the minimum
wage, but critics and analysts say those moves will likely be
counterproductive.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1005 hrs