Venezuela denounces EU-UN conference on refugee crisis

The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says a recent conference by the United Nations and the European Union on the Latin American refugee crisis is a "hypocritical" exercise aimed at isolating Caracas.

A two-day conference, co-hosted with the European Commission, was held on the Venezuelan refugee and migrant crisis in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday.

The event was attended by representatives from the UN, the EU, Latin American nations and aid organizations, but Venezuela was not invited to the conference.

Reacting to the event, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza took to Twitter on Tuesday, describing it as "cynicism.”

The event “brought together governments blocking the Venezuelan economy, creating suffering and migration, stealing resources and threatening to isolate and attack Venezuela," he said

"A sad scramble for resources under the hypocritical pretext of a 'preoccupation' for migration," he added.

Venezuela has been struggling under severe economic contraction, hyperinflation, power cuts, and shortages of basic items as a result of US economic sanctions, a situation that has prompted millions of people to flee to neighboring countries.

The special representative for the UN’s refugee and migration agencies, Eduardo Stein, described the refugee crisis as “unprecedented,” saying it was generating “increasing levels of xenophobia” in the region.

“The challenges for 2020 will be even greater than those faced in 2019,” he told the conference. 

"For the coming year we project the total number of Venezuelan refugees and migrants to pass from 4.5 million to 6.5 million," Stein added.

Currently, Colombia is hosting 1.4 million Venezuelan refugees. Peru has taken 860,000, Chile 371,000, Ecuador 330,000 and Brazil 212,000 refugees from the oil-rich country.

Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said the number of Venezuelans in his country "meant big demand for services, for health treatment, assistance and education services, services for children.”

SS