UN: No politics, just aid to Venezuelans

THE situation for ordinary Venezuelans is increasingly critical but the United Nations remains committed to providing humanitarian support, based on “need, and need

Friday (Saturday in Manila).

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, the UN aid coordinating branch, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), underlined that it was observing developments at Venezuela’s border with Colombia, where an aid convoy arrived on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido refused to rule out the possibility of authorizing United States intervention to help force President Nicolas Maduro from power and alleviate a humanitarian crisis.

National Assembly leader Guaido told AFP he would do “everything that is necessary... to save human lives,” acknowledging that US intervention is “a very controversial subject.”

On the situation at the border, the UN is monitoring that situation closely, said Jens Laerke from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the ideal scenario is that humanitarian aid is provided, independent of any political or other considerations than the pure humanitarian, and that is based on need and need alone.

At the border, the World Food Program (WFP) confirmed that needs are at “crisis”- like levels inside Venezuela, where Guiado declared himself interim President last month, amid deepening economic and political uncertainty.

“How can we know if people are starving or not? Just stay at the border with Colombia, and look who is coming into Colombia,” said WFP senior spokesman Hervé Verhoosel. He said 1.2 million people had come, “starving, in Colombia with no money, no food, no medicine…Yes of course there’s a crisis in the country.”

WFP has been providing emergency food assistance at the Colombian border since early 2018.

From April to December last year, the agency provided emergency food assistance to 290,000 people in the country’s border departments of Arauca, La Guajira, Norte de Santander and Nariño.

Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees and host communities have been assisted, Mr Verhoosel explained, adding that the

expected to rise.

Several resident UN agencies work inside Venezuela including United Nations Children’s Fund, and the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the Pan-American Health Organization, UNAIDS, the UN refugee agency, UN Population Fund and the UN Development Program.

In a bid to help 3.6 million Venezuelans including 2 million children, OCHA has appealed for nearly $110 million.

The UN has already helped local institutions by providing medical kits for women and children, and aid teams are also delivering 100,000 treatments for severe acute malnutrition. Six temporary shelters have also been set up in the western border states to house 1,600 people and offer them protection and information, as well as family kits containing food and clothing.

“Since November, UN agencies have been scaling up existing activities inside Venezuela to meet urgent health, nutrition and protection needs,” Laerke said. “This highly prioritized plan requires $109.5 million. Up to now we only $49.1 million received against that plan.”

it is continuing to work with the authorities through the Pan-American Health Organization, notably to prevent and control communicable and non-communicable diseases.

In 2018, around 50 tons of medicines and supplies were delivered to Venezuela by PAHO, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.

- ed in July 2017, there have been

76 deaths as of December 2018.