COMMISSIONS: Venezuelan Diaspora - Coming soon

THE VENEZUELAN DIASPORA  

For US News & World Report. Written by Devon Haynie and Lianne Milton 

Boa Vista, Brazil -- Since Venezuela's economic crisis began in 2014, an unprecedented number of Venezuelans like Dias have fled the country. In 2016, some 200,000 Venezuelans left, twice the average rate per year between 1999 and early 2015, according to the Migration Policy Institute. 

While most have gone to Colombia, tens of thousands have also fled to Brazil. Since last year, 30,000 refugees have arrived in the border state of Roraima, according to Reuters. In Boa Vista alone, federal police say there could be as many as 20,000. 

Venezuelans come in search of refugee status, temporary work, and urgently needed medical services. The wave of Venezuelans is putting pressure on Roraima's public health care system, which some officials say was already overstretched, and "clogging Brazil's system for processing asylum applications," according to Human Rights Watch. 

Mayerlyn Romero, 25, lost her first child last year to a Venezuelan hospital with no medical supplies. Although her second child is in intensive care, at least there is medicine here, she says. 

From 2015 to 2017, the maternity hospital saw a 413 percent increase in Venezuelan patients. 

"Parents arrive hungry, tired, stressed, defensive and after birth they don't want to leave," says gynecologist Marcia Monteiro. "They don't want to go to the shelters. Sometimes they are released from the hospital and they come back the next day because they have nowhere to go." 

Perhaps the most vulnerable of Venezuela's refugees are the Warao, a nomadic indigenous tribe that fled from the Orinoco River delta in Northeastern Venezuela. They are taking refuge in Roraima, as well as the neighboring state of Amazonas. Many can't go back because they lack the money to return home. Cultural and linguistic barriers make assimilation challenging.  

Additional: The Venezuelan Crisis Spills Over to Brazil