CHAPTER 1 PERU. “I arrived today at the border with my husband and two children," says Daniela, 29, with her 10-month-old baby at the Ecuador-Peru border. "We left Venezuela five days ago by bus. We want to go to Lima where we can stay with friends. It is impossible to remain in Venezuela, there is no medicine, [and] little food." © UNHCR /HÉLÈNE C AUX VENEZUELA SITUATION By the end of 2019, some 4.5 million Venezuelans had left their country, travelling mainly to other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is the largest exodus in the region’s recent history and one of the biggest displacement crises in the world. More than 900,000 Venezuelans have sought asylum in the last three years, including 430,000 in 2019 alone. Some countries in the region, such as Brazil, have taken steps to apply the extended refugee definition under the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees and national legislation, while other countries have gradually scaled up their capacity to process asylum claims and are developing simplified or accelerated refugee status determination case processing modalities. In addition, Latin American countries granted over 2.4 million residence permits and other forms of legal stay to Venezuelans by the end of 2019, which allow them to access some basic services. New visa requirements in many States along the Andean Corridor have left those on the move facing increased protection risks. Furthermore, the number of Venezuelans in an irregular situation continues to increase. At the end of 2019, over 50 per cent of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Colombia were in an irregular situation. Based on reports received by UNHCR and its partners, as well as reliable information in the public domain from a wide range of sources about the situation in Venezuela, protection-sensitive arrangements are required, in particular protection against forced returns and access 10 to basic services, and are thus promoted for all Venezuelans displaced abroad – irrespective of their status – to reinforce the protection dimension and consistent responses across the region.12 With the objective of ensuring an accountable, coherent, coordinated and protection-sensitive operational response for refugees and migrants from Venezuela across the region, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) lead the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform (R4V).13 In 2019, through its Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), partners’ activities benefited over 1.6 million people in 16 countries. For the 2020 Response Plan,14 151 partners throughout the region aim to support 4.1 million people, including vulnerable host community members, including through targeted COVID-19 response activities. The Regional InterAgency Coordination Platform is complemented by eight UNHCR and IOM co-led national and subregional platforms in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru (at national levels) and in the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and Southern Cone (at sub-regional levels). 12 UNHCR, Guidance Note on International Protection Considerations for Venezuelans – Update I, May 2019, https://www.refworld.org/docid/5cd1950f4.html 13 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/platform 14 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/72254 UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019