Some 100 Venezuelans fly home from Peru on government-paid flight
Dozens of Venezuelan economic migrants in Peru have been persuaded to take a flight — paid for by the government of President Nicolas Maduro — to get back home, where they have been offered job and better life under a new plan.
Ninety seven people, including 22 children and four pregnant women, boarded a flight from Lima on Monday to make their journey back to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
Beforehand, they were housed in a hotel near the Venezuelan Embassy in Lima on Sunday, where they received food and medical care, according to a Venezuelan official.
Many of the migrants cited difficulties in finding jobs as well as facing racism and xenophobia in Peru as the reason for their decision to go back.
“I’m going to look for a job. The government has promised that it will help us,” said returnee Miguel Materano, who explained he was taking the flight, which he could not otherwise afford, to escape “a bad situation here and xenophobia” toward Venezuelans.
The returnees as well as hundreds of others who have remained in Peru primarily fled an ongoing acute economic crisis in Venezuela.
Another migrant, Katiuska Anselmo, said she had been unable to find someone to take care of her children as she sought work in Peru. Another returnee, Yusmari Arrais, said she was going back because she could not find a job while being pregnant.
The plan to bring the refugees back is part of a broader scheme by Maduro’s government, known as “Return to the Homeland,” to counter mass migration to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru by Venezuelans in search of a better life.
About 2.3 million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2015. Maduro has launched the plan to persuade the young Venezuelans to get back and work in the crisis-hit country.
Venezuela, once Latin America’s richest nation, has been battling hyperinflation at levels unmatched by any other country. According to a survey carried out by the US firm Gallup, some 53 percent of Venezuelans, between 15 and 29, would like to move abroad permanently.
Maduro has also launched a series of economic plans in an attempt to curb hyperinflation. He recently dropped five zeros from the country’s old banknotes and introduced a new currency, known as the sovereign bolivar.
Maduro also announced an intention to raise the minimum wage by 3,000 percent.
He has vowed that by taking the new measures, Venezuela “is going to experience an economic miracle.”
His government blames the United States and its sanctions for the economic crisis. The opposition, however, have blamed government mismanagement.
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