Colombian President: West's Economic Blockade Against Venezuela is Reason Behind Migration Crisis

Colombian President Gustavo Petro stated that the migration crisis in the region originated because of the economic blockade against Venezuela imposed by the United States and the European Union.

Making a joint statement with his Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador during the Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Life, Peace and Decelopment, held in Cali, Colombia, on Saturday, September 9, Petro stated that the US blockade against Venezuela started a series of migratory waves.

“In the case of migration, it was the economic blockade that began waves of exodus, first from Venezuela to Colombia,” he said.

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He added that the migration crisis is a “problem of the American continent” that began with hundreds passing through the Darién forest. And now there are “thousands a day: 3,000 pass through each day with children; they become 6,000 upon arriving in Mexico, and become 7,000 upon arriving each day at the US border.”

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Petro added that in the short term the problems will become more acute, and could be solved only if the blockade is removed from Venezuela.

The Colombian president called the blockade as an ill-advised policy that “is thought with one target in mind and ends up backfiring on those who made the policy.”

These statement comes just days after the Colombian president made a call to the US government to lift the economic blockade imposed against Venezuela in order to stop the exodus of migrants through the Darién forest.

“If we really want to stop the humanitarian disaster of the exodus through the Darién it is necessary to economically unblock Venezuela,” Petro wrote in a social media post on Thursday, September 7.

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Last week, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that so far this year more than 330,000 people have crossed the dangerous migrant route through the Darién.

In order to stop the migrantion, the government of Panam, where the majority of the forest is located, announced that it will begin deporting migrants with criminal records who cross its border.

This would be its first measure to stop the passage of irregular migrants through the country, and especially though the forest whose ecosystem is being damaged by the passage of thousands of people, as denounced by the Panamanian government.

(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/ECS/SC