Almost 7 million Venezuelan citizens have left their country since the economic and political collapse in 2014. It has been the second-largest refugee crisis in the world.
Most of the migrants are fleeing to neighbouring countries, especially Columbia. Thousands are taking dangerous routes through the jungle north to Panama, but many of them do not survive such a trip. In the past few months, an increasing number of refugees have arrived in the United States. Venezuelans are the second-largest nationality migrating to the US, apart from Mexicans.
More and more Venezuelans want to leave their country and escape from violence, insecurity, a lack of food and medicine. Not long ago, Venezuela was a major oil-exporting country and one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America.
Today, it has one of the world’s highest inflation rates. Most people live below the poverty line. There are not enough basic services, like hospitals, doctors, or schools. Hundreds of thousands of citizens do not have access to clean water.
UNICEF Ecuador from Ecuador, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
