Mark Lowcock, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Aid, held a call in Geneva today in which he laid out the organization’s priorities for 2020, singling out Yemen, South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela as areas of concern.
In the call, Lowcock laid out a plan to provide assistance to 109 million people from these regions, a task which for which he estimated the UN would need $29 billion. Of that sum $750 million would go to providing assistance to Venezuelans in the country, while an additional $1.35 billion would go to aid to Venezuelans who have left the country, Lowcock said.
According to Spain’s EFE, Lowcock said during the call:
In Venezuela, the severe economic crisis has resulted in a fall in the income of many families and the grave deterioration in health services, which has forced many Venezuelans to leave their country.
Lowcock also said that the UN agency hopes to be able to reach six million Venezuelans in 2020: 2.5 million migrants, and 3.5 million still living in the country.
Outages Affecting Large Sections of the Country
Large sections of the country were affected by intermittent power outages today, some of which lasted several hours. At least in Zulia state, the outages may have been precipitated by an explosion affecting electrical infrastructure.
According to La Patilla, the following states were affected by today’s blackouts:
- Nueva Esparta
- Zulia
- Tachira
- Merida
- Lara
- Falcón
- Miranda
- Carabobo
The outages were also detected by Netblocks, an NGO that monitors disruptions to internet access:
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