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By Oriana Van Praag
More than four million Venezuelans have left the country, the majority of them since 2015. That makes Venezuela the second country of origin for people displaced across international borders after Syria, which has been immersed in a civil war since 2011. Despite its magnitude, the Venezuelan crisis has only received a fraction of the international attention and funding dedicated to other conflicts, and is still seen as regional problem. The Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, a joint effort of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization of Migration (IOM), called for $738 million to assist migrant-receiving countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2019. By July 2019, however, only 23.9 percent of the funds needed had been raised.
The purpose of this document is to explain the intertwined social, economic, and political factors causing the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela that has prompted millions to flee. The document will also analyze the flows of migrants and refugees, their legal status within the region, and international funding to attend to the crisis.