The United Nations approved today, for the first time, emergency financial aid for Venezuela as part of its response to the ongoing crisis in the country,
According to Reuters, the UN approved “$9.2 million in health and nutritional aid” for the country. The funds will be administered through the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). According to Reuters:
The U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) will support projects to provide nutritional support to children under five years old, pregnant women and lactating mothers at risk, and emergency health care for the vulnerable, CERF’s website said.
A UN official told Reuters that normally, CERF “mainly funds projects in countries at war or experiencing other crises like natural disasters”
News of the UN move came at the same time that UNICEF issued a press release saying that it has sent 130 tonnes of medicine, medical equipment and food to the country since August of this year. UNICEF estimates that the aid will help 25,000 pregnant women, 10,000 newborns, and 2,300 HIV+ children, on top of having already reached 150,000 children.
UNICEF, present in Venezuela since 1991, has over the past two years strengthened its work with partners to provide vulnerable children affected by the economic crisis with support in education, health, nutrition and protection. So far this year, UNICEF has also supported the vaccination of children with 2.5 million doses of measles vaccines and provided antiretrovirals for 2,334 children and antimalarial treatment for 150,000 children.
Maduro Invites UN Human Rights Chief to Venezuela
Caracas has formally invited Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit the country.
The news came via the state-owned VTV channel, which tweeted an image of the Venezuelan ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Jorge Valero, with Bechelet:
#ATTENTION Jorge Valero, Venezuela’s permanent representative before the UN in Geneva, handed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet a letter from President Maduro inviting her to officially visit Venezuela this #26Nov
According to El Universal, the letter invites Bachelet to see for herself “the great and historical efforts” that the Maduro regime has made “to guarantee and promote the human rights of Venezuelans”.
In fact, the Maduro regime has been universally condemned for its brutal and systemic human rights violations.
In May of this year, and expert panel convened by the Organization of American States (OAS) found evidence that Maduro regime officials committed crimes against humanity by murdering, torturing and arbitrarily detained opposition supporters during the 2014 and 2017 anti-government protest waves.
In September of this year, the regime set a precedent by becoming the first member-state referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the governments of Canada, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru called the organization’s attention to the ongoing human rights violations in Venezuela.
Chile Evacuates Citizens from Venezuela
The Chilean Air Force landed a transport airplane in Caracas today to pick up approximately 100 of its citizens and fly them back to Chile as part of an airlift campaign that began this weekend. Chilean Minister of the Interior Andres Chadwick called the measure “a humanitarian flight”.
Before landing in Caracas, the military airplane flew Haitian migrants from Chile back to Haiti, in a move that human rights organizations have called “hidden deportation”. According to the Chadwick, the repatriated Haitians were flown back home because “they were not able to find what they were looking for” in Chile.
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