Indigenous people from Guyana call for more humanitarian aid for Venezuelan migrants

San Juan, 17 Mar The Association of Amerindian Peoples (APA) of Guyana called on Thursday for more humanitarian aid to attend to the last Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the country, given food shortages and concerns about their health status. APA appealed to the relevant authorities, who have relocated more than 130 Venezuelans from the Warao indigenous community to Khan Hill camp in Region One of the country. The indigenous rights organization actually criticized the transfer of migrants to Region One from the Two, where they arrived at the beginning of the month and whose indigenous community was willing to support them. He also reported that the migrant camp in Khan Hill is overwhelmed and that such conditions increase the risk of transmission of diseases such as covid-19. In its communiqué, the indigenous rights organization called for better coordination for “short, medium and long term support for migrants”, as well as government support for the councils and peoples who offer to help. The President of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, has a different vision, who highlighted seven days ago the humanitarian aid that his country provides to Venezuelans and denied the existence of refugee camps as such. Last November, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) expressed concern about the conditions faced by Venezuelan migrants and refugees in neighbouring Guyana, particularly the 2,500 members of the indigenous Warao community. That month, among the 200 Venezuelans of the Warao ethnic group who arrived in Guyana, there were about twenty malnourished children and several cases of malaria. Guyana hosts some 24,500 migrants and refugees from Venezuela, only a small part of the more than six million who have left the country because of the economic and political crisis it is going through in recent years. CHIEF en/mv/lll