2020 Venezuelan Refugee Crisis: Forecasted to Be the Worst in History

(Photo : Reuters)

The crisis involving the refugees of Venezuela is the top underfunded in the history of the modern world, based on a published report by the Brookings Institution.

Since 2013's economic contraction of 65 percent in Venezuela (the highest in the past forty-five years after its wars), 4.7 million of its citizens had left the country. This is sixteen percent of the total population of Venezuela.

Venezuela ranks second as the total number of people seeking asylum in a different country. The first spot is occupied by Syria. 

According to the forecasts of the UN Refugee Agency, if current situations remain unchanged, the total number of Venezuelan refugees may reach a total of 6.5 million by the following year. This will be close to the speed of refugees from Syria with 6.7 million forecasted refugees.

Despite these statistics, the Venezuelan refugee crisis is still among those that are underfunded together with seventeen hosting nations such as Peru, Columbia, and Ecuador. 

According to the Brookings, the world had spent $7.4 billion for accommodating the needs of refugees for their 1st to the 4th-year Syrian crisis. However, the world had only allotted a $580 million budget for the first four years of the crisis on Venezuelan refugees. Comparing the two amounts through a per capita basis, the world had allotted an amount totaling to $1,500 to aid each refugee from Syria while giving only $125 to each refugee from Venezuela.

According to a statement by Brookings, the world had allowed this to happen by saying that the crisis happening in Venezuela is only a regional crisis and does not meet the criteria to become a global crisis. The worldwide community had said that the economic downfall of Venezuela was not caused by forces outside of the country but by the people who had the power to control the country.

Some organizations had been exerting efforts to help with the crisis by offering crowdfunding campaigns. One of these organizations is the Hispanics in Philanthropy. The organization is helping spread the Venezuelan refugee crisis as a global concern.

According to a leading member of the Hispanics in Philanthropy named Nancy Santiago Negrón, the United States of America had refused to believe that the crisis for Venezuelan Refugees is a global concern for the sole reason that the crisis is not causing any shifts in the United States.

She then said that that outlook may change because it was expected that the total number of refugees from Venezuela may reach a total of five million in the following month.

The total Venezuelan refugees seeking asylum in the United States had already surpassed the Chinese total where approximately 30,000 Venezuelan refugees had already sent their applications to the Citizenship and Immigration Services of the US in 2018.

Venezuelan refugees are the largest group of people in the US to have filed their application for asylum in the US with approximately reaching a third of the total claims made to the USCIS.

Funding is important not only for addressing humanitarian requirements but also for assisting the hosting nation for their efforts to host these refugees. Funding from the international community is necessary to assist the hosting nations to provide the necessary facilities for the refugees' care and well-being.