Lima Group meets in Colombia reception of venezuelans
Pacaraima RR 23 08 2018 Chegada na fronteira Grupo de imigrantes venezuelanos percorre a pé o trecho de 215 km entre as cidades de Pacaraima e Boa Vista.Marcelo Camargo/Ag. Brasil
Pacaraima, Roraima. 23/08/2018. Arrival at the border. Group of Venezuelan immigrants travels on foot for 215 km between the cities of Pacaraima and Boa Vista. Marcelo Camargo/Agencia Brasil
On November 14 and 15, Bogotá will be the stage of another meeting of the Lima Group, a forum for political negotiation formed by 14 Latin American countries to discuss the migration crisis in Venezuela. It will be the fifth edition of the International Technical Meeting, which plans to debate the reception of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the region.
The intention of the meeting is to provide a technical perspective and to share the experience of those who are accompanying the plight of the Venezuelan people in the context of mobility. The event will be attended by members of civil society and representatives of the UN, development banks and the governments of 12 countries in the region, among them Brazil.
In a document, participants of the Working Group on Venezuelan Human Mobility – formed by more than 40 organizations from countries in the region – reinforced the importance of the role of civil society in the defense and promotion of human rights of people in the context of human mobility and they noted the importance of their participation in the meeting with regards to the creation of proposals for the work plan.
According to the Working Group, the “independent, inclusive and purposeful” nature of these organizations “makes them not only relevant, but necessary for the development of solutions and of research into the challenging context that the region is experiencing on matters of human mobility.”
The meeting is part of a process that began in September 2018, when the first meeting was held in Quito, Ecuador, to analyze the humanitarian situation of Venezuelan migrants in the region. The second meeting took place in November of the same year, when an action plan with the support of UN agencies was approved.
The fourth edition occurred in July this year, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In a joint statement, the governments agreed to reinforce the cooperation and communication between the destination countries of Venezuelans and they undertook to focus their efforts not only on the reception of Venezuelan migrants and refugees, but also on documentation and humanitarian assistance, including access to healthcare, education, employment and housing.
