The exodus of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a “crisis moment” comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday. Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward. On Thursday, the IOM and UN refugee agency UNHCR called on Latin American countries to ease entry for Venezuelans, more than 1.6 million of whom have left since 2015. “The judge accepted the request for the precautionary measures requested by the ombudsman,” the agency wrote on Twitter. Ecuador’s government said it would respect the decision to allow migrants to enter on their Venezuelan identification cards.

Source: The Irish Times August 25, 2018 10:24 UTC