Attachments
CONTEXT
● The ongoing political and economic crisis in Venezuela continues to drive hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to neighboring Brazil. Of the nearly 7.8 million people who had fled Venezuela as of August 2024, approximately 585,400 Venezuelans resided in Brazil, with the majority in Amazonas and Roraima states along the Brazil–Venezuela border, according to the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V).
● An estimated 446,300 Venezuelan migrants, refugees, and host community members in Brazil currently require humanitarian assistance—including food, health care, nutrition, protection, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene support. Venezuelans in Brazil also face significant challenges in accessing public services and livelihood opportunities, exacerbating their need for humanitarian assistance, R4V reports.
● While the Government of Brazil (GoB)-led, UN-supported Operation Welcome relief and resettlement initiative offers a framework for providing migrants and refugees with humanitarian assistance and voluntary relocation from Roraima and Amazonas states to other parts of Brazil, the population influx has strained the GoB’s capacity to provide services in border areas. Between April 2018 and August 2024, Operation Welcome had facilitated the voluntary relocation of nearly 138,000 Venezuelans across Brazil for family reunification, employment, and protection purposes. However, significant gaps remain—notably, the lack of livelihood opportunities—among Venezuelans who lack regular migratory status.
● Climatic shocks—such as drought, flooding, and wildfires—in Brazil continue to adversely affect agricultural livelihoods, temporarily displace local populations, and compound food security concerns. Widespread flooding across Brazil’s Rio Grande de Sul State between April and June 2024 displaced nearly 390,000 individuals and resulted in 177 civilian deaths, according to the UN. The extensive flooding also destroyed nearly 2,300 miles of roadway and damaged 6.7 million acres of agricultural land adversely affecting people’s livelihoods and the local economy.
● Brazil faced unprecedented wildfires in mid-2024, with the total number of acres burned increasing to more than 27 million as of early October, representing a nearly 120 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023, GoB authorities report. The wildfires affected more than 680 municipalities across Brazil, directly impacted approximately 18.9 million people, resulted in the evacuation of at least 10,700 people, and caused significant damage to indigenous communities located in vulnerable biomes such as the Amazon Rainforest, according to the UN. In addition to disrupting access to essential services, people residing in heavily impacted states, including Acre, Amazonas, and Rondônia, remain at heightened risk of respiratory illnesses due to the fires.