QUITO (AP) – the Foreign Ministers of Ecuador and Colombia joined efforts to deal with the unstoppable migration of Venezuelans who could worsen after the recent economic measures of the President Nicolás Maduro.Ecuador convened a Summit of 13 countries of the continent, including Venezuela, to seek joint actions, while Colombia wants that organization of the United Nations to send a Special Envoy to address the issue. The recent measures adopted by Maduro have sparked fear in the Governments of the region to enhance the flow of Venezuelans who leave their country.
Mature this week ordered the conversion of the currency, which removed five zeros, to deal with hyper-inflation, which according to the International Monetary Fund could close this year by one million per cent. In a meeting with a group of correspondents, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister José Valencia said that he called a regional summit in September to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela to agree on mechanisms to deal with the immigration situation. Although the head of diplomacy earlier mentioned that you between January and August have entered more than one million Venezuelans to Ecuador, migration figures indicate that since the beginning of the year until July there has been income 453.930 Venezuelan and 382.628 have left mainly to Peru.valencia he pointed out that that number constitutes “a flow massive, unexpected” which has overflowed to the Ecuadorian institutions. Even the country declared a couple of weeks ago the emergency in three provinces to enable aid mechanisms.
Valencia said that 200,000 Venezuelans of whom 90,000 have residency visa have been left on Ecuadorian soil, 50,000 are pending and the rest given facilities so that they can legalize their stay.
To do this, this week met with the Venezuelan Vice-Minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Alexander Yánez, in order to ask the Government to issue passports and identity cards in its diplomatic delegation in Quito. He said that he had a positive response. Ecuador also requested special assistance to the International Organization for migration.
Photo: AP for its part, the Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, interviewed in his country by Bluradio, agreed that Venezuelan migration “requires a multilateral treatment by virtue of which an effect regional”.
To address this issue, he said that Colombia will call a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States and that this week will address the issue with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.
Since Saturday the Venezuelans must submit passport to enter Ecuador. Before they could do so only with an identity document. For its part, Peru announced a similar measure since August 25.
On the border between Ecuador and Colombia thousands of Venezuelans crowd before the immigration facilities, where they sleep for days outdoors, to enter this country in many cases heading to Peru, Chile and Argentina, among others.
According to United Nations figures, at least two million Venezuelans have left their country legally in the last 10 years. The number of Venezuelans who migrated from irregularly with the deepening of the economic and social crisis is unknown. In this note: Ecuador Colombia migrants Nicolas Maduro
