Written declaration No. 666 | Doc. 14651 | 12 October 2018
Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela
According to the United Nations, thousands of Venezuelan citizens are “starving, deprived of essential medicines, and trying to survive in a situation that is spiralling downwards with no end in sight. Families have been forcibly evicted from their homes with excessive use of force; many homes have been demolished and personal belongings confiscated. Due process and rule of law have been abandoned in these cases.”
Inflation in Venezuela “could reach one million percent by December 2018, only comparable with Germany’s after the First World War”.
The largest communities in Venezuela have European origins, more than two million citizens with Spanish, Italian or Portuguese origin. The European diasporas blocked in Venezuela today numbers around one million citizens.
Thousands are crossing the borders as refugees, moving to Brazil or Colombia, others are trying to come to Europe, while the rest are still locked in Venezuela.
While the Parliamentary Assembly strives to help refugees coming from Africa, more than one million European descendants need our help in Venezuela.
We call on all member States and the European Union to develop a strategy that gives priority to a humanitarian corridor to supply food and medicines, but also a programme of reintegration with responses to housing, education, social problems and employment.