The president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, ad this Wednesday a plan to expedite the passage of Venezuelan migrants who enter the country’s southern border to continue their journey to the United States.
Chaves assured in a press conference that Venezuelan migration passing through Costa Rica has increased “drastically” in recent months, going from 200 people to 3,700 people per week.
“In your homes you have seen the human tragedy of rows, platoons, battalions of people crossing the Darién on foot. For those who do not have the opportunity or have not seen the photographs, that is walking, literally, in the jungle; sleep outdoors and these people, most of them Venezuelans, seek to emigrate to the United States, which He has given signs that he will receive them”, indicated Chaves on national television.
The president described the migrants as “vulnerable” and indicated that many of them arrive in Costa Rica injured or sick, for which he also announced that the Ministry of Health, the Costa Rican Social Security Fund and the public forces, among other institutions and organizations, will coordinate a plan “to treat these people with dignity.”
“We are not encouraging them to stay here, but rather, in accordance with Costa Rica’s international commitments, what we are going to do is let them pass, help them as we are required by international agreements and international law on purely humanitarian issues,” Chavez said.
Chaves said he is concerned that November is approaching and the weather in Costa Rica “is going to get worse” and “it is very possible that from 3,722 [migrantes] that we are seeing today, passing 200 daily, we Costa Ricans can conceptually or conceivably see up to a thousand people daily”.
Marlen Luna, Deputy Minister of the Interior and Director of Migration and Immigration of Costa Rica, expressed in the same conference of President Chaves, that the country “faces an international crisis of migrant passage that breaks records.”
Therefore, Luna assured that with the plan of the Costa Rican president they will try “that these people circulate through the country more quickly than they are trying to pass, thereby avoiding that the population centers are flooded for that 10% or so of people who do not have enough money or the skills to continue advancing”.
“What are we guaranteeing with this new articulation and this plan that we are facing? That they can move faster through the country, trying to give those who are staying, care in shelters, food, food and basic elementary health care. In this work I want to thank the international community and the NGOs, which are the ones that are reinforcing us in these efforts”.
The deputy minister said that in the population centers there are people “more economically destitute” and that their health is a little more affected, which makes them decide to stay more days than usual.
“We are going to guarantee that protection and that accompaniment to migrants in transit at all times while the maximum peak of passage through the country lasts, which, we calculate, will be between a month and a half more.”
“And that accompaniment will, of course, be within the framework of respect for people’s human rights, we are going to continue guaranteeing that agility in the passage by better articulating the national means of transport so that they can continue their journey and, of course, , on this journey, guaranteeing that we are going to prevent the risks that transit has, at least when passing through the country,” he concluded.
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