Virus prevents diaspora Venezuelans from sending money home

After fleeing Venezuela along with millions of others amid the country’s grueling humanitarian crisis, Misael Cocho made his way by bus to Peru — where he got odd jobs and sent money home monthly to support his mother and his 5-year-old son.

But just after Cocho landed his steadiest work so far in Lima, coronavirus cases skyrocketed. He lost his job, sold his TV to buy food and hasn’t been able to wire money for months to Caracas to pay for food for the boy and Cocho’s mother.

The pandemic’s economic fallout left many Venezuelans abroad and the relatives back home who rely on them in dire straits. And as work disappears in countries like Peru and Colombia, humanitarian groups say many Venezuelans who fled hunger are now going hungry. Cocho, 24, faces a dilemma: Should he stay in Peru in case the economy improves, or go back to

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Venezuela’s population peaked at 30 million in 2015, but 5 million alarmed at the country’s economic implosion migrated elsewhere in South America and to the US and Europe.

Caracas where life is precarious but might not get worse?

“The truth is that this pandemic has really hit me hard,” he said. Venezuela’s population peaked at 30 million in 2015, but 5 million alarmed at the country’s economic implosion migrated elsewhere in South America and to the US and Europe, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration. Most who stayed behind get by on a minimum wage that’s the equivalent of about $2 a month.