Peru evaluates humanitarian corridor together with Chile and Ecuador

Stopped for five days in the desert next to a highway and under the strong sun, the Venezuelan Rosmary Morales looked helplessly on Friday at the wall of Peruvian police on one side and Chilean on the other.

He wants to leave Chile because his documents have expired and the cost of living has become unaffordable for his modest income. But the woman, born in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, never imagined feeling treated like “a dog.”

“Many mothers there, with children, with the flu, fever, with diarrhea, with constant vomiting, dehydrated, unable to eat a good lunch, without bathing,” the 45-year-old woman, whose daughter was studying at the University, bitterly described to The Associated Press. a Chilean university.

Then he thought aloud and searched for a reason for the attitude of the immigration authorities of both countries. “Maybe they have that behavior because there are Venezuelans who may have done wrong, but we cannot generalize… there are honest, hard-working people who go out to give everything for everything, not all of us go out to leave people in a bad light.” Venezuela,” he said.

Morales’s statements came as Peru is discussing with Chile and Ecuador the possibility of creating a humanitarian corridor for the hundreds of Venezuelan, Colombian and Haitian migrants stranded for two weeks on the Chilean-Peruvian border line.

The deputy Chilean Interior Minister, Manuel Monsalve, announced on Friday that the government will install Civil Registry service points in the area to enroll irregular immigrants who want to leave the country and that they can “register their footprint, their face and their name”.

He emphasized that it is up to the government to guarantee that “people who have committed crimes are not leaving Chile either.”

People stranded at the border lack documents, which is why Peru does not allow them to enter its territory.

Monsalve added that the Chilean government seeks to resolve the current migration crisis on its border with Peru and create a humanitarian corridor “for people who want to leave” Chile to “return to their country.”

The minister and other authorities traveled to Arica to hold meetings aimed at resolving the situation. The Undersecretary of Foreign Relations, Gloria de la Fuente, declared that a “fruitful” dialogue with Peru is continuing to create the humanitarian, air or land corridor, but she did not specify the date on which it will take place.

He emphasized that for the corridor to be completed “the will of other countries is required, particularly those places where they want to return,” he said, referring to Venezuela, where most of the stranded originate.

Peruvian Interior Minister Vicente Romero told local radio station RPP on Friday that he met with local authorities in the Peruvian region of Tacna to see the possibility of opening “temporary shelters so that little by little people who want to return to your country, once this humanitarian corridor is established, they will be taken as it should be”.

Migrants who cannot advance to Peru face the inhospitable climate that characterizes the Atacama desert, one of the most arid on the planet, with heat during the day and intense cold at night. Some improvised tents with blankets, but they lack water and basic services.

Romero indicated that since Friday the surveillance of the border with Chile has been reinforced and that there are 390 police officers at various points where the presence of migrants is frequent. In a second line, 300 soldiers have been located to serve as support.

The reasons why undocumented immigrants leave Chile are varied, including the rising cost of living, lack of employment and difficulties renting a home due to lack of documents, according to the Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes, a Chilean organization that protects the rights of migrants.

Added to the above was an instructive from the Chilean National Prosecutor’s Office on April 10 that orders the preventive detention of Chileans and foreigners detained for a crime and who cannot prove their nationality with a Chilean document.

The instructions were issued a few hours after the murder of a Chilean police officer, allegedly by four undocumented Venezuelans. The last of them was arrested the day before in northern Chile.

Both in Peru and Chile, legislators seek to toughen the treatment of migrants.

A commission of Chilean deputies approved this week a project that seeks to classify irregular immigration as a crime and that proposes jail terms from 61 to 541 days. Now it will be processed in the plenary session of the lower house and then in the Senate.

In Peru, legislator José Jerí, from the Somos Perú party, proposed a bill yesterday to imprison foreigners who enter illegally for up to 10 years, while the far-right legislator for Popular Renewal, Jorge Montoya, called for “legally protecting ” to Peruvian border control personnel to, if necessary, “shoot” the migrants.

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