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Brazil sends thousands of Venezuelan migrants to country’s rich southern states

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After an 18-hour bus voyage south from eastern Venezuela, Miguel Gonzalez, Maryelis Rodriguez, and their four young children disembarked as the sun rose.

Before entering the station, the parents retrieved two duffel bags and assessed needs: 1-year-old’s diaper. 2-6-year-old restrooms. Brazil directions.

“Taxi? Taxi?” hawkish cab drivers asked everyone walking through Santa Elena de Uairen station, where many leave Venezuela each month. After exiting a taxi in Pacaraima, Brazil, the Gonzalez family became migrants for the first time.

Since the political, economic, and social catastrophe began last decade, almost 7.2 million Venezuelans have gone. Many went to the U.S. and Spain, but 2.4 million went to Colombia.

Brazil, Venezuela’s Portuguese-speaking neighbor, ranks lower.

However, a five-year-old program that grants eligible Venezuelans work permits and free flights to remote parts of Brazil has made Brazil a popular choice. Post-pandemic program approvals increased.

Gonzalez began planning to migrate in October after seeing violent conflicts at his gold mine.

He stated Venezuela had no life since the children “are not going to study, they are not going to have a future” if the family continues there.

The Gonzalez family is applying for Brazil’s “interiorization” program, introduced in 2018 to help the far northern state of Roraima deal with Venezuelans crossing the border after food and medicine shortages.

Migrants are relocated to locations with higher economic prospects, notably in the wealthier southern states. It has accepted around 100,000 of the 426,000 Venezuelans who have fled to Brazil, including 3,377 in March.

With $500, the Gonzalez family sold their fridge, fan, kitchen, bed, and other equipment, packed clothes and diapers in duffel bags and backpacks, and left San Felix. They traveled $90 to Santa Elena de Uairen and $20 to Pacaraima, where they applied for the program.

Even though Gonzalez had one of Venezuela’s most lucrative occupations, earning roughly $600 in two weeks and occasionally up to $1,200—far more than the $5 monthly minimum wage—they opted to move. Armed organizations that cooperate with authorities make mining villages hazardous.

Crime is high. You live and die. You understand? Gonzalez stated.

The interiorization program provides papers, temporary housing, immunizations, and relocation flights. It also teaches Brazilian labor laws and rights.

Brazil’s monthly minimum salary is $265. In June and July last year, 800 homes with 3,529 Venezuelans in Brazil were surveyed. 76% earned up to two minimum earnings.

Interviews, physicals, and paperwork are required.

Maria Rodriguez, her father, husband, daughter, two kids, twin grandsons, and four relatives were among hundreds at the Pacaraima border crossing in early April, navigating program steps. Her tired eyes laughed with her active grandson.

Migrants line up at dawn for information. They rejoice when they or their new migrant companions are told they can board passenger buses to Boa Vista, 125 miles (200 kilometers) south, where they will fly to their new communities.

Rodriguez’s group waited six weeks in Pacaraima. They slept in a handmade tent and hid from the sun.

The family closed its unprofitable cheese-making business in Venezuela and moved to Paraná, Brazil, to work in construction. Rodriguez said another boy living there had done well in a short period.

“His children are studying in a good school, and meanwhile, I could see my other sons… struggling,” Rodriguez, 45, remarked while waiting for portable toilets to be cleaned for the day. “As adults, we can last all day with just an arepa, but with those kids, how do you tell a child there’s no food?”

Venezuela’s self-described socialist government mismanaged billions in oil dollars and a drop in crude prices caused a decade-long disaster. International economic sanctions to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro have deteriorated things.

As economic chances in host nations dry up, Venezuelans are migrating again. The Rev. Agnaldo Pereira de Oliveira, director of Jesuit Service for Migrants and Refugees in Brazil, said most migrants entering Brazil are first-timers.

“They held on until now and couldn’t,” Pereira de Oliveira said. “Now come the last ones who resisted in Venezuela because of their business and home. “I had a job, but living conditions no longer exist.”

After Venezuelans stretched public services in Roraima, which includes Pacaraima and Boa Vista, in the mid- to late-2010s, Brazil began its interiorization effort. A man burned two Venezuelan homes, injuring five.

Venezuelans in southern Brazil like Paraná face hardships. Some become street sellers and Uber drivers since they can’t speak Portuguese and must endure significantly colder temperatures.

Shelters have been available in Boa Vista for years, but many adults and children sleep on sidewalks or outside bus stations. Some find shelters crowded and hot. Others feel unsafe or resent the necessary early wake-up.

The Figuera family cooks, washes, splashes, and rests under shade trees on the Branco River’s western bank near Boa Vista. Their hair is sandy.

Eleven-year-old Kisberlin Figuera, her father, stepmother, and baby sister are trying again to legally move to Paraná. To give birth in Carupano, Venezuela, they gave up on their first attempt.

Kisberlin has made migrant girl friends and mastered Portuguese. They play tag and cards outside the bus terminal. She misses her family but prefers Boa Vista’s public bathrooms near the beach for water.

Sitting by the river, she envisaged Paraná “full of parks, loads of food, lots of money and a lot of water to take showers and drink.”

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Asia Pacific

China earthquake death toll rises to 149, two still missing after a week.

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The death toll from the China earthquake rises to 149, with two still missing after a week. At least 149 people were murdered in a rural location in the northern part of China by one of the most severe earthquakes that China has seen in recent years, according to official media. Two people are still missing following the magnitude-6.2 earthquake a week ago.

The earthquake’s epicenter was located in an area encompassing both the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The Hui people of China, a relatively small ethnic minority that stands out for having a distinctive Muslim identity, reside in significant numbers in this area.

The quake’s violent vengeance was felt most strongly in Gansu. Almost 200,000 dwellings were destroyed, and 15,000 homes were on the verge of collapsing, according to reports from Chinese official media. In the province, the severe earthquakes caused 145,000 people to be displaced, and as of December 22, 117 people had been killed and 781 others had been injured.

According to official media, as of 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Sunday, 32 people had perished, and two more were still missing in the region of Qinghai, which is located west of Gansu.

The local authorities have determined that the shallowness of the earthquake is responsible for the severity of the damage. The thrust-type rupture during the earthquake and the comparatively soft sedimentary rock in the area contributed to the shakes’ significantly increased destructive power.

Most of the destroyed residences were constructed at an earlier age and were constructed out of brick-wood or earth-wood buildings. Because their load-bearing walls were created from the earth, the local authorities have stated they have inadequate defenses against earthquakes.

In addition, they stated that the tragedy has brought to light the critical need to increase the earthquake resilience of dwellings in rural areas.

Those provinces that are located on the northeastern limit of the tectonically active Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, which includes the majority of Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, and sections of Xinjiang, as well as the rocky highlands in the western part of Sichuan, are prone to experiencing earthquakes.

In the province of Sichuan, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake occurred ten years ago, resulting in the injuries of over 6,700 people and the deaths of over 160 others. Two thousand seven hundred people lost their lives as a result of the devastating earthquake that struck Yushu, which is primarily Tibetan, in 2010.

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AFRICA

The UK paid Rwanda an additional $126 million for the contested migrant plan.

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As the tab for Britain’s controversial proposal to relocate asylum seekers to the East African nation continues to increase, the United Kingdom paid Rwanda an extra 100 million pounds ($126 million) in April. This was in addition to the 140 million pounds it had already provided Rwanda.

Even though the Rwanda project is at the core of the policy that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is employing to discourage illegal immigration, there have been no individuals sent to Rwanda as of yet due to legal challenges that have taken place since the initiative was introduced in 2022.

After Sunak’s immigration minister resigned this week, the polarizing policy is now regarded as a danger to Sunak’s leadership, which is anticipated to be challenged in the election that will take place the following year.

According to a letter that the British Ministry of the Interior issued on Thursday, the United Kingdom plans to give Rwanda fifty million pounds in addition to the 240 million pounds it has already provided to the East African nation.

The opposition Labour Party criticized the disclosures regarding the rising cost of a scheme that legal experts warned could collapse. Some parliamentarians within Sunak’s party are also expected to express their disapproval of the idea.

A statement by Yvette Cooper, the shadow interior minister for the Labour Party, on social networking site X, said, “Britain cannot afford more of this costly Tory chaos and farce.”

On Friday, however, the newly appointed minister for legal migration, Tom Pursglove, explained what he called the “investment” of 240 million pounds. He stated that once the Rwanda policy was operational, it would reduce the money spent on hosting asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom.

“When you consider that we are unacceptably spending 8 million pounds a day in the asylum system at the moment, it is a key part of our strategy to bring those costs down,” Pursglove explained to Sky News.

Pursglove stated that the money donated to Rwanda would assist in the country’s economic growth and help get the asylum relationship with the United Kingdom up and running.

There was no connection between the money sent to Rwanda and the treaty that the two nations signed on Tuesday, according to the letter from the Ministry of the Interior.

The treaty aims to respond to a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which stated that the deportation plan would contravene local laws based on international human rights standards.

“The Government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a Treaty to be signed, nor was any offered,” according to the correspondence.

After Robert Jenrick resigned from his position as immigration minister on Wednesday, Sunak made a plea to fellow Conservative parliamentarians on Thursday to come together in support of his Rwanda proposal. He stated that the emergency legislation the government had drafted to get the scheme up and running did not go far enough.

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Africa

UK interior minister travels to Rwanda to resurrect asylum plan.

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On Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior of the United Kingdom, James Cleverly, came to Rwanda to sign a new treaty. This was done to circumvent a court judgment that blocked the government’s contentious policy of transferring asylum seekers to the East African nation.

The Rwandan plan is at the core of the government’s attempt to reduce migration, and it is being closely monitored by other nations who are considered to be considering policies that are comparable to Rwanda’s.

In a decision handed down a month ago, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom stated that such a move would violate international human rights norms embedded in domestic legislation.

Following the decision, the United Kingdom has been making efforts to revise its agreement with Rwanda to incorporate a legally binding treaty that guarantees Rwanda would not remove asylum seekers brought there by the United Kingdom. This is one of the primary concerns of the court.

Several attorneys and charitable organizations have said that it is highly improbable that deportation flights will begin before the election. With a lead of more than ten percentage points in the polls, the opposition Labour Party intends to abandon the Rwanda policy if it is victorious.

A meeting between Cleverly, who arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on Tuesday morning, and Vincent Biruta, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, is scheduled to take place to sign the agreement.

“Rwanda cares deeply about the rights of refugees, and I look forward to meeting with counterparts to sign this agreement and further discuss how we work together to tackle the global challenge of illegal migration,” Cleverly says.

The United Kingdom aims to transfer thousands of asylum seekers who came to its beaches without authorization to Rwanda under the plan that was agreed upon the previous year. This discourages migrants from crossing the Channel from Europe in tiny boats.

In exchange, Rwanda has been given an initial payment of 140 million pounds, equivalent to 180 million dollars, along with the promise of additional funds to cover the costs of housing and medical treatment for any deported persons.

THE PRESSURE
A great deal of pressure is being put on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reduce net migration, which reached a record high of 745 thousand people in the previous year, with the vast majority of migrants entering through legal channels.

“Stop the boats” is one of the five goals that Sunak has set for his government. The influx of asylum seekers who pay people smugglers for their crossings of the Channel, which frequently take place in boats that are overloaded and not seaworthy, is one of the aims that Sunak has set.

The Supreme Court determined that the Rwanda plan should not be implemented because there was a possibility that refugees who were deported would have their claims incorrectly evaluated or that they would be sent back to their country of origin to suffer persecution.

In the latter part of this week, it is anticipated that the new treaty will be followed by the release of legislation declaring Rwanda a so-called safe nation. This law is intended to prevent legal challenges against the planned deportation flights.

Despite this, this will probably result in a fresh set of political and legal difficulties.

An immigration attorney at Harbottle & Lewis named Sarah Gogan stated that the government’s policy will be challenged due to Rwanda’s history of violations of human rights provisions.

“Rwanda is an unsafe country and this is not a quick fix,” added the politician. “You cannot in a matter of weeks or months reform a country and turn it into one with an impartial judiciary and administrative culture.”

Another “gimmick” was what Yvette Cooper, the spokesperson for the Labour Party’s home affairs department, called the most recent measures proposed by the administration.

Whether or not to design the law in a way that would avoid subsequent legal challenges is still up for debate by the administration.

Several members of the Conservative Party in parliament are putting pressure on the government to incorporate a “notwithstanding” clause into Rwanda’s policy. This clause would disapprove the domestic and international human rights commitments of the United Kingdom regarding Rwanda.

However, some politicians within the ruling party, such as Robert Buckland, have stated that such a move would be “foolish” and undermine the Good Friday Agreement, which is primarily responsible for ending three decades of carnage in Northern Ireland. This is because the European Convention on Human Rights supports the treaty.

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