Brazil’s Government to Increase Help to Refugees in Venezuelan Crisis

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Public Security Minister, Raul Jungmann is expected to spend the day on Thursday in Pacaraima, Roraima to see first-hand the installation and emergency services being provided to Venezuelan refugees after the protests by some of the town’s residents on Saturday.

After several meetings, the federal government promised to accelerate the process of internalization of Venezuelans to other states. According to officials by next week about 250 immigrants will leave the Brazilian border town to seek work opportunities in larger urban centers around the country. By the end of September, say officials the government hopes to relocate 1,000 Venezuelans from Roraima state. These refugees will join the 830 whose internalization process has already been completed.

“The expectation is that we have other flights, totaling between August and September more than 1,000 people.” said Viviane Esse, subchief at the Chief of Staff’s articulation and monitoring office.

Meanwhile the residents of Pacaraima are waiting for a solution for the increasing resentment that the new visitors have caused.

“I see them [the Venezuelans] as human beings who need help. They are not here because they like Brazil, it is out of necessity, they are escaping from hunger,” 53-year-old merchant Oracy Cardoso told government news agency Agencia Brasil. But he says the events of Saturday, with the burning of a refugee camp is likely to continue if something is not done soon

“It is spreading, like a snowball coming down from the mountain. It (violence) could have been avoided with good screening, with ‘no prior criminal’ records of Venezuelans and Brazilians. Everyone who wanted got across the border, with no questions, ” concluded Cardoso.

On Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and the Director General of the United Nations Migration Agency, IOM, William Lacy Swing appealed for greater support from the international community to the countries and communities in the region receiving a growing number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela.

“We recognize the growing challenges associated with the large-scale arrival of Venezuelans. It remains critical that any new measures continue to allow those in need of international protection to access safety and seek asylum,” stressed Grandi.

With an estimated 2.3 million Venezuelans living abroad, more than 1.6 million have left the country since 2015, 90 per cent of them to countries within South America but according to Esse, despite the intense flow of Venezuelans crossing the Brazilian border every day, about 60 percent do not remain in Brazil, heading elsewhere for a better life.