Venezuela’s neighbors join forces to contain crushing flow of refugees

Venezuela’s accelerating slide toward mass starvation has become a continental disaster, and South American governments this week began trying to manage it together.

With thousands of migrants pouring over the border — an outflow equal to the Mediterranean refugee crisis — government officials are meeting in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador to coordinate a response that so far has been haphazard. On the agenda are measures to prevent epidemics, harmonize identification requirements and share the burden of relief.

“The migration crisis is putting Venezuela squarely on the table in a way we haven’t seen so far,” said Geoff Ramsey, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research organization that works for human rights. “It’s no longer an internal affair.”

In all, 2.3 million Venezuelans live outside the country, with more than 1.6 million fleeing the ravaged petrostate since 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That’s roughly equal to the flow of migrants to Europe in the same period. The crisis looks likely to worsen as oil output plunges thanks to mismanagement, and hyperinflation defies attempts to rein it in.

There’s another discussion on what to do about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a socialist autocrat who has withstood protests, coup and assassination attempts and U.S. sanctions. Peru and Argentina said this month that they will join Chile, Colombia and Paraguay to accuse Mr. Maduro of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Leaders have called for elections and the restoration of Venezuela’s nullified National Assembly, but President Donald Trump’s suggestions of military intervention have few backers. Instead, neighboring countries are contending with the burden Mr. Maduro has handed them.

In Boa Vista, Brazil, the capital of impoverished Roraima state, the situation is desperate. Dom Mario Antonio da Silva, the state’s Catholic bishop, said Wednesday that about 25,000 refugees have reached the city, and as many as many 4,000 sleep on the streets. The church is offering food baskets, serving breakfast to 1,200 people and teaching migrants Portuguese.

“What we need are effective immigration policies,” Mr. da Silva said. “At the moment, we have no immigration policies. What Brazil is doing at the moment is just first aid, emergency measures.”

This week, officials from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil met in Bogota to discuss joint strategies on health care, schooling and employment for migrants. On Wednesday, there were further meetings in Lima to formulate a request to organizations including the U.N. and the Red Cross to step up financial and logistical support, said Enrique Bustamante, head of policy at Peru’s immigration agency.

“The number of Venezuelan migrants in the region is unprecedented,” he said. “There’s never been a migratory flow like this in such a short time.”

Ministers from as many as 14 countries and 10 international organizations are to meet Sept. 3-4 in Quito, Ecuador, to discuss the crisis more broadly.

Not a moment too soon, said Ian Vasquez, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity in Washington.

“The region appears unprepared and surprised,” he said. “It’s turning into a wider humanitarian crisis.”

The costs of an effective response are unknown. So far, the U.S. is spending more than $65 million on development and humanitarian assistance.