HIGHLIGHTS
U.S. Vice President Pence announces nearly $61 million in USG humanitarian assistance in response to the Venezuela regional crisis
Recurring blackouts across Venezuela exacerbate humanitarian needs
Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia remain partially closed, prompting informal border crossings IFRC plans to scale up assistance inside Venezuela
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
On April 10, U.S. Vice President Michael R. Pence announced nearly $61 million in additional U.S. Government (USG) assistance in response to the Venezuela regional crisis. The assistance includes $13.3 million from USAID/OFDA, $16.2 million from USAID/FFP, and $31.4 million from State/PRM to address needs throughout the region. Vice President Pence made the announcement during a convening of the UN Security Council to discuss the worsening humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
A series of nationwide blackouts since early March have exacerbated humanitarian needs across Venezuela. The first blackout, which began on March 7, lasted approximately one week before power was restored to most areas of the country; however, at least one-half of Venezuelan states experienced a multi-day outage beginning March 25, and intermittent blackouts continued to affect many areas of the country as of the end of March, media report. The outages are significantly impacting health care services, decreasing access to safe drinking water, and further limiting food availability in Venezuela, prompting protests in cities across the country.
In early April, in coordination with the governments of Curaçao and the Netherlands,
USAID pre-positioned four Interagency Emergency Health Kits (IEHKs) in Curaçao as part of the USG efforts to help vulnerable households affected by the crisis in Venezuela. Each IEHK contains medicines and medical supplies sufficient to meet the emergency health needs of approximately 10,000 people for 90 days. Since early February, the USG has pre-positioned nearly 546 metric tons of food, health, hygiene, and nutrition commodities in Colombia, Brazil, and Curaçao.