Peru became the country with the highest number of Venezuelans requesting refuge

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Thursday that Peru has the highest number of refugee applications from Venezuelans worldwide.

Some 537,000 Venezuelans have requested international protection in Peru, said Federico Agusti, UNHCR representative in the South American country, during the presentation of a guide to judicial access for refugees and migrants.

According to UNHCR, a refugee is fleeing persecution or armed conflict, while a migrant chooses to move not because of a direct threat of persecution or death but primarily to improve their lives by finding work, education, family reunification, or other reasons.

Refugee claims by Venezuelans continue in the United States (230,000), Brazil (92,000), and Colombia (30,000). According to the UN agency, in 2020, Peru was the second country to receive the second-highest number of refugee applications from Venezuelans.

The UN agency indicated that more than six million have left Venezuela and five million are in Latin America.

Colombia is the first country receiving Venezuelans, with 1.8 million citizens, followed by Peru with 1.3 million but with projections to reach 1.4 million Venezuelans by the end of the year, said the UNHCR representative.

Agusti indicated that Venezuelans in Peru are almost 3.5% of the population of some 33 million.

“If we look at it at the city level today, the city of Lima is the first city in the world in the number of displaced Venezuelan people,” said the UNHCR representative.

“In Lima, there are approximately 1.1 million Venezuelans. If Lima were in Venezuela, it would be the third city in Venezuela with the highest number of Venezuelans,” Agusti commented.