Colombia will ask the United Nations to designate a special envoy to coordinate humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants flooding into countries around the region, the foreign minister said on Friday, Reuters reported.
More than a million people have arrived in Colombia from Venezuela over the last year and a half, fleeing a severe economic and political crisis in the socialist country that has caused food and medicine shortages.
“We are going to insist on the strengthening of an emergency humanitarian fund and we are going to propose the creation of a special envoy under the United Nations who can coordinate the multilateral actions that are required because of the humanitarian crisis we are living,” foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, who took office on Tuesday, told journalists.
Colombia has spent millions on aid for Venezuelan migrants, including food, shelter and medical care. Many arrive with only what they can carry and are often underfed.