Today, October 23, Angelina held a meeting with Peru’s President, Martín Vizcarra, at 9:00 am, the meeting was held at the Government Palace. Also participating was the minister of Foreign Affairs, Néstor Popolizio.

At the end of the meeting, the Peruvian Foreign Minister and the UNHCR Special Envoy held a press conference, in order to give details of Angelina’s official visit to the country, and to know and analyze the situation of Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

We will try and find the full press conference and add it to the video archive as well, for now we have two shorter news segements.

Article from UNHCR with quotes from Angelina

Outside the white and blue building where immigration formalities are carried out, Venezuelan families camp under trees or wherever they can find some shade.
There are groups of people everywhere, sitting around their piled up belongings, holdall bags and suitcases. Big white tents function as clinics, nurseries, vaccination centres and information points. Adults and children eat and sleep in the open air or in the corridors, while they wait to apply for asylum in Peru.

Since August 2018, Tumbes, a hot and dusty border town in Peru’s arid northern coast, has seen the arrival of tens of thousands of destitute Venezuelan refugees and migrants. Currently, some 2,000 cross from Ecuador every day.

UNHCR’s Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie, was there this week, in order to witness the humanitarian situation, during an official visit to Peru on behalf of UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who visited Tumbes himself earlier this month.

Peru is one of the countries most affected by the surge in Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the last three years – the largest movement of people in Latin America’s recent history.

In Tumbes, Jolie visited the Daughters of Saint Anne, who have turned their convent into a soup kitchen, where hundreds of women, children and men can have at least one hot meal a day. She also visited the binational border post and a shelter for Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the Peruvian capital, Lima. She spoke to many refugees who told her about the reasons why they had to flee Venezuela.
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As usual when Angelina is visiting countries in her role as an UNHCR Special Envoy, she has a busy schedule and she tries to do as much as possible. On October 22nd, she went to the city of Tumbes in the district of Corrales, where she visited an shelter run by the mothers of Santa Ana where Venezuelan women and children are cared for who left their country due to the crisis. After this she went to a meeting at the Plaza Mayor de Tumbes Help Center in Tumbesm which is also a place to assist the Venezuelan refugees who have just arrived in Peru.

After these two visits she also went to the Binational Border Care Center (Cebaf), where there are about 3,500 Venezuelans waiting to enter Peru.

The UN has asked Angelina Jolie to Peru to assess the situation of refugees venezuelans, has announced the High Commissioner for refugees, several local media indicating that she had arrived on Sunday in Lima.

As a goodwill ambassador for the united nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), the hollywood star will conduct “a three-day mission to assess the humanitarian needs of refugees venezuelans”, who are fleeing en masse the economic crisis in their country, “and the challenges facing Peru, as host country,” according to a press release from the UNHCR.

According to an estimate of Lima, 456.000 Venezuelans currently residing in Peru, compared to 6,000 in 2016.

According to the united nations, 2.3 million Venezuelans (or 7.5% of them) live abroad, of which 1.6 million have emigrated since 2015, when the shortages of food and medicine have worsened, in parallel to the hyperinflation. Inflation is expected to reach 1.350.000% this year, according to the IMF.

Photos has been added to the gallery as well as videos to the video archive!