Brazil Sends Military To Border To Cope With Flood Of Fleeing Venezuelans

Brazilian President Michel Temer signed a decree Tuesday to send troops to the country's northern state of Roraima, where Venezuelans fleeing food shortages have streamed across the border.

The armed forces will have police powers on the borders and highways in Roraima, the Brazilian government said.

Temer said the armed forces are being sent to "guarantee law and order" as Venezuela's migrant crisis was "threatening the harmony of the whole continent." He said the move was for the safety of both Brazilian citizens and Venezuelan migrants.

The decree is in effect until Sept. 12.

Temer said on Twitter that Brazil was working to minimize "the impacts of the humanitarian disaster caused by the government of Venezuela." He said Tuesday that Venezuelans have been subjected to "terrible living conditions."

Earlier this month, Brazilian residents at Roraima's border town of Pacaraima attacked migrant camps of Venezuelans, according to The New York Times.

In Venezuela, inflation rates recently topped 60,000 percent amid widespread reports of food and medicine shortages.

More than 1.6 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2015, the United Nations said, with 90 percent of them moving to other South American countries — especially Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. A total of between 2,700 to 4,000 migrants arrive in those four countries each day, the U.N. says.

In Brazil alone, more than 800 Venezuelans have arrived each day as of April, the U.N. said, with a total of more than 52,000 since the start of 2017.

Brazil's announcement comes after a meeting this week of officials from Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil in the Colombian capital Bogota over the handling of what a U.N. refugee official has characterized as "one of Latin America's largest mass-population movements in history."

Colombia is now home to about 1 million Venezuelans while more than 400,000 are living in Peru, Reuters reported.

Colombia and Peru announced that they would begin sharing information on Venezuelan migrants in an effort to track movements and distribute aid, according to the wire service.

Ecuador has declared a state of emergency in some of its northern provinces in response to the influx, while Reuters reports that Peru declared a 60-day health emergency Tuesday in two of its northern border provinces.

Peru reported a decrease in the number of Venezuelan migrants entering the country after it imposed new requirements that went into effect Saturday — Venezuelan citizens must carry a passport to enter. Peru and Ecuador both made the change this month, requiring passports instead of national ID cards. </s> Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a solution to a growing exodus of migrants overwhelming South American countries as they flee a devastating economic crisis in Venezuela.

The head of Colombia's migration authority, Christian Kruger, said in a statement on Thursday the three nations would meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss problems caused by thousands of Venezuelans who cross borders each day and the impact of recently implemented passport controls by Peru and Ecuador.

"The exodus of Venezuelan citizens is not a problem exclusive to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or a single country. This is a regional problem and as such we must address it," Kruger said.

In the past two weeks, both Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry valid passports instead of just national ID cards. In Brazil, rioters drove hundreds of migrants back over the border.

Venezuela's Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Peru's foreign minister said on Tuesday that Lima was calling for a meeting of the permanent council of the Organization of American States to discuss Venezuelan migration.

More than a million Venezuelan migrants have entered Colombia over the past 15 months, according to official estimates, but Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Brazil have also received many migrants.

The statement said the new passport measures had cut the number of Venezuelans crossing legally through passport controls in Colombia but increased the number crossing borders illegally.

"Demanding passports from a nation that does not have them and whose government does not facilitate the issuance of this document is to encourage irregularity," Kruger said.

Over the past two years, many Venezuelans have struggled to obtain passports amid the OPEC nation’s political and economic chaos.

A growing wave of migrants has inundated border towns and flooded some Latin American job markets with low-skilled Venezuelans desperate for work in order to send money back to their homeland.

With the International Monetary Fund forecasting that Venezuela’s inflation could reach 1 million percent by year's end, malnutrition is on the rise, as a monthly minimum wage that amounts to a few U.S. dollars puts basic products like chicken out of reach for many. </s> Brazilian President Michel Temer signed a decree Tuesday to send the army to "guarantee law and order" on the border with crisis-hit Venezuela after recent violent clashes.

Earlier this month, more than a thousand homeless Venezuelan immigrants who had flooded over the border into Brazil's northwestern Roraima state were driven back by an angry mob that rampaged through their makeshift tent following rumours a local shopkeeper had been brutally beaten by migrants.

Temer said his measure was aimed at providing "security for Brazilian citizens but also Venezuelan immigrants fleeing their country."

He also branded Venezuela's crisis as "tragic," saying it "threatens the harmony of practically the entire continent."

Temer called on "the international community to adopt diplomatic measures" to halt the Venezuelan exodus, as economic and political crises under President Nicolas Maduro's regime drive hundreds of thousands to leave in hope of finding a better life elsewhere.

"Brazil respects the sovereignty of other states but we have to remember that a country is only sovereign if it respects its people and looks after them," he added in an ominous warning to Maduro.

The United Nations says some 2.3 million Venezuelans are living outside their homeland, with 1.6 million of those having left since 2015.

Oil-rich but over-reliant, Venezuela is in a fourth year of recession brought on by a crash in oil prices in 2014. Some 96 percent of the country's revenue is generated through crude.

The exodus has strained Venezuela's neighbours, Colombia and Brazil in particular, but also other countries hosting thousands of migrants such as Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

Like Brazil, Peru has seen outbreaks of anti-Venezuelan xenophobia.

"It's not just Brazil enduring the consequences, but Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and other Latin American countries," Temer said in a televised address.

"That's why we urgently have to find the way to change this situation."

Some 60,000 refugees are in Brazil, while Peru recently tightened its border controls on Venezuelans after seeing more than 400,000 enter the country.

Temer didn't reveal how many soldiers would be deployed to Roraima, but Defense Minister Joaquim Silva e Luna said "troops are already in place" at the border.

Security Minister Sergio Etchegoyen warned that Brazil "needs to discipline" the influx of migrants.

Meanwhile, Brazil said it was negotiating with Caracas to avoid Venezuela's state electricity provider Corpelec turning off the lights in Roraima over a $40 million unpaid debt.

Brazil can't pay it because of European Union and United States sanctions against Venezuela.

Brazil's Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes told AFP the country wanted to settle its debt but was struggling to find "a financial path" without breaking "the restrictions and sanctions applied by Europe and the United States" against Maduro and his government.

Nunes said Brasilia has proposed an "exchange of accounts" since Venezuela is indebted to Brazil "far more than the $40 million we owe the company."

Any electricity cut would not only hit hard the small and impoverished state of Roraima, but also the thousands of Venezuelans who have fled there, thus exacerbating their already precarious situation.

Brazil has studied potential short and long-term solutions for Roraima's electricity but those are both costly and harmful to the environment, while there is also the possibility of inciting a territorial conflict with indigenous people in the area. </s> BOGOTA (Reuters) - Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a solution to a growing exodus of migrants overwhelming South American countries as they flee a devastating economic crisis in Venezuela.

The head of Colombia’s migration authority, Christian Kruger, said in a statement on Thursday the three nations would meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss problems caused by thousands of Venezuelans who cross borders each day and the impact of recently implemented passport controls by Peru and Ecuador.

“The exodus of Venezuelan citizens is not a problem exclusive to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or a single country. This is a regional problem and as such we must address it,” Kruger said.

In the past two weeks, both Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry valid passports instead of just national ID cards. In Brazil, rioters drove hundreds of migrants back over the border.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Peru’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Lima was calling for a meeting of the permanent council of the Organization of American States to discuss Venezuelan migration.

More than a million Venezuelan migrants have entered Colombia over the past 15 months, according to official estimates, but Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Brazil have also received many migrants.

The statement said the new passport measures had cut the number of Venezuelans crossing legally through passport controls in Colombia but increased the number crossing borders illegally.

“Demanding passports from a nation that does not have them and whose government does not facilitate the issuance of this document is to encourage irregularity,” Kruger said.

Over the past two years, many Venezuelans have struggled to obtain passports amid the OPEC nation’s political and economic chaos.

A growing wave of migrants has inundated border towns and flooded some Latin American job markets with low-skilled Venezuelans desperate for work in order to send money back to their homeland.

With the International Monetary Fund forecasting that Venezuela’s inflation could reach 1 million percent by year’s end, malnutrition is on the rise, as a monthly minimum wage that amounts to a few U.S. dollars puts basic products like chicken out of reach for many. </s> BOGOTA (Reuters) - Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a solution to a growing exodus of migrants overwhelming South American countries as they flee a devastating economic crisis in Venezuela.

The head of Colombia's migration authority, Christian Kruger, said in a statement on Thursday the three nations would meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss problems caused by thousands of Venezuelans who cross borders each day and the impact of recently implemented passport controls by Peru and Ecuador.

"The exodus of Venezuelan citizens is not a problem exclusive to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or a single country. This is a regional problem and as such we must address it," Kruger said.

In the past two weeks, both Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry valid passports instead of just national ID cards. In Brazil, rioters drove hundreds of migrants back over the border.

Venezuela's Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Peru's foreign minister said on Tuesday that Lima was calling for a meeting of the permanent council of the Organization of American States to discuss Venezuelan migration.

More than a million Venezuelan migrants have entered Colombia over the past 15 months, according to official estimates, but Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Brazil have also received many migrants.

The statement said the new passport measures had cut the number of Venezuelans crossing legally through passport controls in Colombia but increased the number crossing borders illegally.

"Demanding passports from a nation that does not have them and whose government does not facilitate the issuance of this document is to encourage irregularity," Kruger said.

Over the past two years, many Venezuelans have struggled to obtain passports amid the OPEC nation's political and economic chaos.

A growing wave of migrants has inundated border towns and flooded some Latin American job markets with low-skilled Venezuelans desperate for work in order to send money back to their homeland.

With the International Monetary Fund forecasting that Venezuela's inflation could reach 1 million percent by year's end, malnutrition is on the rise, as a monthly minimum wage that amounts to a few U.S. dollars puts basic products like chicken out of reach for many.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. </s> The Ecuadorian government is asking 13 other South American nations to attend a regional summit to discuss the Venezuelan migrant crisis.

The foreign ministry said it was inviting Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela to a Sept. 17-18 meeting in Quito.

According to the United Nations, more than 2 million Venezuelans have fled the worsening economic crisis in the oil-rich nation since 2014.

Desperate migrants have been fleeing through neighboring Colombia to countries like Ecuador and Peru in search of work.

The International Monetary Fund is forecasting that Venezuela's inflation could reach 1 million percent by the end of the year, sparking regional concern that the migrant crisis will only get worse.

Last week, Ecuador and Peru announced new rules blocking entry to Venezuelans traveling without a passport. Most poor Venezuelans don't have passports, which take months to obtain and cost hundreds of dollars.

Brazil sent troops to its northern border on Sunday after residents there burned a Venezuelan migrant camp.

Ecuador's deputy migration minister, Santiago Chavez, said it was important to establish policies to "confront in the best manner and most responsible way, the unusual flux of Venezuelan citizens."

The United Nations refugee agency estimates about 550,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador in 2018 but claims that only 20 percent of those remain, with the rest continuing on to Peru and Chile. </s> BOGOTA (Reuters) - Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a solution to a growing exodus of migrants overwhelming South American countries as they flee a devastating economic crisis in Venezuela.

Venezuelan migrant Jhan Carlos Rivas hugs his wife Maiquerina Vasquez as they arrive from the northern city of Tumbes, at the border with Ecuador, to the bus terminal in Lima, Peru August 23, 2018. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo

The head of Colombia’s migration authority, Christian Kruger, said in a statement on Thursday the three nations would meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss problems caused by thousands of Venezuelans who cross borders each day and the impact of recently implemented passport controls by Peru and Ecuador.

“The exodus of Venezuelan citizens is not a problem exclusive to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or a single country. This is a regional problem and as such we must address it,” Kruger said.

In the past two weeks, both Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry valid passports instead of just national ID cards. In Brazil, rioters drove hundreds of migrants back over the border.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Peru’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Lima was calling for a meeting of the permanent council of the Organization of American States to discuss Venezuelan migration.

More than a million Venezuelan migrants have entered Colombia over the past 15 months, according to official estimates, but Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Brazil have also received many migrants.

The statement said the new passport measures had cut the number of Venezuelans crossing legally through passport controls in Colombia but increased the number crossing borders illegally.

“Demanding passports from a nation that does not have them and whose government does not facilitate the issuance of this document is to encourage irregularity,” Kruger said.

Over the past two years, many Venezuelans have struggled to obtain passports amid the OPEC nation’s political and economic chaos.

A growing wave of migrants has inundated border towns and flooded some Latin American job markets with low-skilled Venezuelans desperate for work in order to send money back to their homeland.

With the International Monetary Fund forecasting that Venezuela’s inflation could reach 1 million percent by year’s end, malnutrition is on the rise, as a monthly minimum wage that amounts to a few U.S. dollars puts basic products like chicken out of reach for many. </s> LIMA, Peru — Two South American nations are stiffening entry requirements for the flood of Venezuelans fleeing their nation’s economic and humanitarian crisis, a move that could make their plight even more arduous.

Authorities in Peru announced Friday that they will follow Ecuador’s recent decision to require Venezuelans reaching the border to enter with a passport, a document that has grown increasingly difficult to obtain in Venezuela.

The decision drew an immediate rebuke from authorities in Colombia, which has become a gateway for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans leaving their homeland. Many are crossing through the Andean nation on their way to other places in Latin America.

Though his own country already imposed its own often ignored entry requirements for Venezuelans, Colombia Migration Director Christian Kruger warned that the new passport rule in neighboring Ecuador could create a bottleneck at the Rumichaca International Bridge connecting the two countries. Officials estimate over 4,000 Venezuelans crossed from Colombia into Ecuador each day over the bridge earlier this month.

“We are immensely worried about the consequences this might present,” he said.

According to the United Nations, 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014 as their country reels from hyperinflation and severe shortages of everything from food and medicine to ink and paper for passports.

Over 1 million Venezuelans have arrived in Colombia in less than two years, with many using the mountainous nation as a bridge to Ecuador and Peru, where some believe they will have better luck finding jobs and applying for asylum.

More than a half million Venezuelans have entered Ecuador since January, prompting officials to declare a state of emergency. In Peru, officials recorded more than 5,000 Venezuelan entries on a recent single day.

“The exodus of Venezuelans from the country is one of Latin America’s largest mass-population movements in history,” William Spindler, the spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said earlier this month.

Colombia began requiring Venezuelans to present a passport or border card allowing for short trips into the nation earlier this year. But thousands still sneak in through hundreds of illegal entry points along the 1,370-mile border with Venezuela. Colombian officials recently agreed to provide legal status to 442,000 who participated in a registry for migrants without valid documents.

A border crossing from Venezuela into the Brazilian city of Pacaraima was closed earlier this month after a judge ruled it should be shuttered until a program to relocate Venezuelan refugees could keep pace with the hundreds arriving each day. That decision was later reversed by an appellate court.

Peruvian Interior Minister Mauro Medina said the passport requirement is needed to ensure an orderly migration. “If something happens to them, we have a way to identify them,” he said. “Also, some bad apples – who don’t represent the majority, who are decent people – filter in and police should have the adequate tools to identify them.” </s> Colombia and Peru have agreed to build a joint database to share information and better address the flood of Venezuelan immigrants fleeing violence and a crumbling economy.

The countries, along with Brazil and Ecuador, met in the Colombian capital Bogota this week to discuss the issues each country faced with the wave of refugees that is only likely to increase in the coming months.

“We are sure that the solution is to not close the borders, since that in encouraging the irregularities,” said Christian Kruger, Colombia’s immigration director.

The proposed would better track crisis that has been felt throughout South America and better document details about the refugees’ locations, health, education and what services they have accessed, according to press release by Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Relations.

By doing so, the statement said, it will allow the countries to better construct polices regarding the immigration, work, safety, health and education of those migrants.

More than 1.6 million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and thousands more pour over the border each day.

In Colombia, the government has reported around 1 million Venezuelans who have settled across the nation. Peruvian officials say there are more than 400,000 living in the nation.

As the two countries continue talks of the database, they have extended an invitation to other governments in the regions to join them in their effort.

“We must, from the sovereignty of each country, search for strategies that allow us to provide attention and identify these migratory flows and most importantly, to make them an active part of society,” Kruger said.

Colombia and Peru to build joint database on fleeing Venezuelans was last modified: by
Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile tighten border controls for Venezuelan migrants. Over 7% of Venezuela’s total population has fled the nation in two years.