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| - More than 30 nations, led by the United States, on Thursday pledged $1.5 billion for the support of Venezuelan migrants who fled political and economic unrest, Canada said. The donor conference hosted by Ottawa and the UN refugee agency aimed to raise $1.44 billion to address the second-biggest migrant crisis in the world. That target was beat with pledges totaling $954 million, plus an additional $600 million in concessional loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. "We are at a critical juncture," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement. "The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Latin America and the Caribbean with particular ferocity, at a time when they struggle to respond to the world's second largest displacement of people outside their country." The amount raised, according to Canadian International Development Minister Karina Gould, represents "a significant increase in the global community's response." "I think it will have a very meaningful impact for Venezuelan migrants and their host communities," she told a closing news conference. Nearly six million people have fled Venezuela, which has been in recession for eight years and plunged into a political crisis in January 2019 when opposition leader Juan Guaido, who was parliamentary speaker at the time, declared himself acting president. The opposition-dominated legislature had previously refused to acknowledge President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 re-election in a poll widely condemned internationally as fraudulent. Most of the refugees have been taken in by 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The United States ($400 million), the European Union ($180 million), Germany ($97 million), Canada ($94 million) and Spain ($60 million) were the top donors at Thursday's conference. The event also brought new donors Australia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and New Zealand to the table. The funds, Gould told AFP, will be used for humanitarian assistance, emergency food assistance, basic health care and education in those countries, as well as in Venezuela. "Some of it will be (disbursed) in Venezuela itself because we recognize that one of the best ways to help solve this crisis is to ensure that the Venezuelans have access to the basic necessities for quality of life, dignity and access to their human rights," Gould explained in an interview, noting Caracas's recent "greater openness" to allowing in international aid agencies and NGOs. Last year, less than half of the funding needed to support resettlement was made available, leaving half of the refugees malnourished and up to nine in 10 without any sources of income. And 1,800 to 2,000 Venezuelans continue to flee the country each day, adding to the migrant crisis, according to the UNHCR. "We anticipate that these flows will go on growing during the rest of the year," said Antonio Vitorino, director general of the International Organization for Migrants. "We need to be prepared to give a positive response to those increasing flows of people on the move," he said, adding that more funding will be needed. amc/caw
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