Latin American ministers meet to tackle Venezuelan migrant crisis

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Ministers from a dozen Latin American nations started a two-day meeting in Ecuador Monday on how they can cooperate to end the massive Venezuelan migrant crisis that has jolted the region.

Officials will discuss calls for international funding for overwhelmed public services and whether to impose tighter restrictions to curb migrant flows in the first concerted drive to tackle the crisis.

The two-day meeting is scheduled to conclude with a joint statement on Tuesday, the host Ecuador said.

"A regional effort will help our countries respond better to these situations, so that we can coordinate efforts and provide humanitarian assistance to people on the move," Ecuador's Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told reporters ahead of the talks.

Ministers from a dozen Latin American nations hold a two-day meeting on how they can cooperate to end the Venezuelan migrant crisis in Quito, September 3, 2018. /VCG Photo

Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the three countries that have received the bulk of migrants flowing out of Venezuela, have all called for more funding from developed countries to assist their utterly overwhelmed public services.

The EU announced a 35 million US dollars aid package on Friday to support Venezuelans both at home and in host countries.

Ministers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay will be present at the Quito meeting, Ecuadoran officials said.

Venezuelan migrants wait to get resident visas or temporary stay permits at an Interpol facility in Lima, Peru, August 29, 2018. /VCG Photo

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are teeming into neighboring countries, fleeing a collapsing economy with falling oil prices and shortages of food and medicine.

Countries across South America traversed by Venezuelan migrants have vastly differing entry requirements, with some requiring no more than an ID, while others have toughened their restrictions to try to control the flow of migrants.

Ecuador's ombudsman, Ernesto Pazmino, said "all governments should make their countries more flexible in order to cushion this humanitarian crisis."

The exodus "exceeded all expectations", Pazmino said, and countries of the Americas have to establish strategies, a regional contingency plan, to alleviate this crisis caused by the wave of emigration.

(Cover: A Venezuelan family waits for the buses to take them to the border with Peru in Tulcan, Ecuador, August 24, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP