Venezuela Regional Crisis Fact Sheet #2, Fiscal Year (FY) 2018

The Government of Colombia estimates that this number is expected to increase. To address the humanitarian needs of Venezuelans in Colombia, the UN released an addendum to the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Colombia in early May 2018. The addendum requests an additional $102.4 million to respond to the needs of the nearly 1.2 million people in Colombia, including Venezuelans, returning Colombians, and host community members, who require humanitarian assistance due to the Venezuela regional crisis. The UN Humanitarian Country Team in Colombia estimates that approximately 1.2 million individuals in the country, including approximately 940,000 Venezuelans, 178,000 Colombian returnees, and 71,000 host community members, will require humanitarian assistance in 2018 due to the Venezuela regional crisis. This revised estimated population in need represents a 70 percent increase from the 700,000 Venezuelans in need identified in the 2018 Colombia HRP released in January. The HRP addendum requests an additional $102.4 million to assist approximately 500,000 vulnerable people through December 2018. More than $47.3 million of the total amount requested would provide emergency food and nutrition assistance for approximately 371,000 of the 611,000 people projected to be food-insecure through December 2018 due to the Venezuela regional crisis. Other priority needs among vulnerable populations in Colombia include health, livelihoods, protection, shelter, education, and WASH assistance, as well as pathways toward regularized legal status. Colombia's Arauca, La Guajira, and Norte de Santander departments, located along the border with Venezuela, remain among the areas most severely affected by the crisis, having received the highest population influx from Venezuela to date. The influx is overwhelming already constrained social services and exacerbating humanitarian needs among new arrivals and host communities in these areas. In response to the Venezuela regional crisis, the U.S. Government has announced $9.6 million in additional humanitarian assistance for emergency response efforts. The newly announced response funding includes $8.1 million from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration to support the International Organization for Migration to provide shelter and protection assistance, build host government capacity, and improve tracking of migration flows across the region. Additionally, $1 million from USAID's Office of Food for Peace will be used to distribute emergency food vouchers to Venezuelans sheltering in Ecuador. The ongoing disease outbreaks in Venezuela continue to contribute to increased public health concerns in Brazil, Colombia, and other countries throughout the region. As of late May, health officials had recorded approximately 2,150 confirmed measles cases in Venezuela since July 2017 and nearly 1,100 confirmed diphtheria cases in Venezuela since July 2016, according to the Pan American Health Organization. In response, relief actors are coordinating with relevant government authorities throughout the region to bolster disease surveillance efforts, mitigate public health risks, and respond to emergency health needs among vulnerable populations. In Brazil, more than 4,000 people were sheltering in nine temporary shelters in Roraima managed by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as of late May. The UNHCR estimates that as many as 7,000 people in Roraima require emergency shelter assistance. USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance partner, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, has commenced distributions of relief items, including blankets, clothing, cooking sets, hygiene supplies, mattresses, and water containers, to people in emergency shelters in Roraima. In Colombia, the Government estimates that nearly 1.1 million people from Venezuela, including more than 442,000 Venezuelans lacking proper documentation, 377,000 Venezuelans with proper documentation, and 250,000 Colombian returnees, were sheltering in the country as of mid-June 2018. The UN Humanitarian Country Team in Colombia released an addendum to the 2018 HRP, estimating that approximately 1.2 million individuals in the country will require humanitarian assistance in 2018 due to the Venezuela regional crisis.