The surge in gang violence in Haiti since February forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes as of end September and continued to generate heightened protection risks for internally displaced persons (IDP). In this context, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, Raouf Mazou, concluded on 3 October a three-day visit to Haiti, where he witnessed the devastating impact of the country’s dire security situation in IDP sites in Port-au-Prince. He also visited the Ouanaminthe border crossing. Mazou, accompanied by UNHCR´s Director of Division of Emergency, Security and Supply (DESS), Shoko Shimozawa, and UNHCR Regional Director for the Americas, José Samaniego, met with key government officials, including former Prime Minister Garry Conille, Foreign Affairs Minister Dupuy and Humanitarian Affairs Minister Gaspard, as well as UN agency heads and UNHCR local partners.
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UNHCR and IOM on 2 September praised Ecuador’s new presidential decree introducing an extraordinary regularization process for Venezuelans and their families who currently lack regular status in the country. This initiative is expected to benefit some 100,000 people, according to Government estimates. Ecuador hosts the fifth largest number of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the Americas. The regularization will assist thousands who registered for a previous process in 2022 but were unable to complete the necessary steps to finally obtain their visas. They could not obtain regular status because of practical barriers to meeting the requirements, including providing necessary documentation such as passports or valid national IDs, and covering the costs of additional paperwork. The process will allow Venezuelans who are in Ecuador irregularly to access a type of visa called Temporary Residence of Exception, which initially lasts two years and can be renewed for another two years. Beneficiaries will join the approximately 97,000 people already regularized.
The Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V) on 5 September published the Refugee and Migrant Needs Analysis (RMNA) for 2024. This document provides a comprehensive and evidence-based assessment of the situation and needs of refugees and migrants in 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries covered by the R4V response. The findings of the RMNA 2024 highlight that 4.2 million Venezuelans living in the region still face difficulties in accessing essential services and formal employment, despite the laudable achievements of host countries in providing humanitarian assistance, protection, and integration opportunities. The RMNA draws on a regionally harmonized framework for joint needs assessments, developed and implemented in an inter-agency manner among regional and national partners. More than 14,000 household surveys were conducted in 15 of the 17 R4V countries, corresponding to more than 41,500 migrants’ and refugees’ views. The RMNA findings will inform the Regional Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants (RMRP) for 2025-2026, which will be presented in December 2024