The Organization of American States (OAS) begins collecting funds to help people fleeing Venezuela due to harsh economic crisis, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro said.
MEXICO CITY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) The Organization of American States (OAS) begins collecting funds to help people fleeing Venezuela due to harsh economic crisis, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro said.
The organization's permanent council held a session in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the issue of migration from Venezuela. The group made a number of decisions, but did not adopt any official resolution.
"After debates on the migration crisis in Venezuela at the OAS Permanent Council, I announced the establishment of an OAS working group headed by [Venezuela opposition figure and migrant himself] David Smolansky, which will develop a report and assess the crisis. And we are beginning to collect financial aid to satisfy the needs of the Venezuelans," Almagro wrote on Twitter.
Almagro said at the council session that 87 percent of the Venezuelans in 2017 were living in poverty, with 61.2 percent of them living in extreme poverty.
According to the secretary general, the OAS members should agree on sharing burden posed by the influx of Venezuelan migrants.
Being heavily dependent on oil resources and burdened with debt, Venezuela has been unable to recover after the worldwide recession of the late 2000s.
