Violent Death Rate In Venezuela Dips As Criminals Migrate (X image@cwfortrading)
In 2023, the rate of violent deaths in Venezuela has dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades. Years of migration of both criminals and victims massively due to the economic crisis of the nation has paved way for Venezuela to be safer than before.
The young people who were usually the victims of violence has fled the country. The criminals have emigrated due to the lack of opportunities in committing crimes has also emigrated, according to Briceño León, professor at Venezuela University, as reported by Bloomberg.
However, the suicide rate in Venezuela has rose to 8.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, as compared to the rate of 6.5 in 2022. The rate is among the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis that has been haunting the country for years.
Venezuela offers a lesson to other countries. Despite being one of world’s largest oil reserve, the country has been grappling with economic crisis for years. Ever since the oil was discovered in the country in the 1920s, the country has witnessed an exhilarating but perilous boom-and-bust. Years of poor governance has left Venezuela, the once most prosperous country of Latin America, into political and economic ruins. The country has been reduced to extreme humanitarian crisis similar to those countries that has been affected by wars and conflicts.
While thousands leave the country, others inside it struggle to survive. As of August 2023, more than 7.72 million people constitute to the refugee crisis of the country. According to Disaster Philanthropy, Venezuela has one of the largest refugee-crisis in the world.
Those who fled the country are also not spared from the struggle to find a decent job, food and housing. As a result of which, the migrants continue to migrate to other countries while others return to Venezuela.
According to Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 300,000 Venezuelans returned to the country since September 2020. Those returning also faces difficulties in finding jobs, accessing social services, and housing. However, the 2023 Refugee and Migrant Needs Analysis showed that most of the entry into the country was pendular, as most people are planning to exit the country again. Report suggests that as of October 31, 2023, 66 percentage of the population, which will be around 19 million people, of Venezuela need humanitarian assistance.
According to Wall Street Journal, Venezuela has stopped flights from US carrying the deported migrants. Venezuela stopped accepting the deported migrants from US and Mexico. The statistics from Customs and Border figures show that from October to December last year, US was sending back between six and seven thousand people a month on repatriation flights. The figure went down drastically to 2,727 people in January this year.
Earlier, Mexican authorities had been flying migrants from the US border to cities in the south as a push to discourage the Venezuelan arrivals into the States, said Wall Street Journal.
