By Giwa SHILE
An estimated 547,000 Venezuelan refugees have arrived in Ecuador since January to escape the crisis in their country, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday, announcing that it would increase its help to the host country.
The UNHCR spokesman, William Spindler, said this at a news conference in Geneva after Ecuador’s government declared a state of emergency in three provinces on Thursday.
Daily arrival numbers in Ecuador have risen from around 3,000 to more than 4,000 since the start of August, Spindler said.
“The exodus of Venezuelans from their country is one of Latin America’s largest mass population movements in history,” he said.
The UNHCR is stepping up its assistance to Ecuador, including help on emergency planning, and increasing its presence at key border crossings. The refugees pass through Colombia before reaching Ecuador.
While most of them travel further south to Peru and Chile, 20 per cent remain in Ecuador.
“Many of the Venezuelans are moving on foot in an odyssey of days and even weeks in precarious conditions,” Spindler said.
Some 40 per cent of the refugees are women and girls, who face a high risk of sexual violence on their journeys.
In spite having the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering an economic, political and humanitarian crisis, with widespread shortages of basic goods and inflation predicted to hit one million per cent this year.
In recent months, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled to neighbouring countries to avoid hardship at home.
