An estimated 2.3 million Venezuelans had fled the crisis-wracked country as of June, mainly to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, the United Nations said Tuesday.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that those fleeing — about 7 percent of Venezuela's 32.8 million people — cite lack of food as the main reason for leaving. U.N. humanitarian officials report that 1.3 million of those who fled were "suffering from malnourishment," he said.
Oil-rich Venezuela has been sinking deeper into an economic and political crisis. Hyperinflation and widespread shortages of food and medicine are battering the country, and the International Monetary Fund projects inflation could top 1 million percent by year's end.
Socialist President Nicolas Maduro often blames Venezuela's poor economy on what he claims is an economic war being waged by the United States and Europe. Despite widespread discontent over the country's economic and political problems, he won a second six-year term as president in a May election that his leading challenger and many nations have not recognized as legitimate.
Dujarric said severe shortages of basic medicines and medical supplies in Venezuela "have led to a sharp deterioration of the quality of hospitals."
U.N. officials say more than 100,000 HIV patients are at risk due to lack of access to necessary medication, the U.N. spokesman said. Formerly eradicated diseases including measles, malaria, tuberculosis and diphtheria "are present and on the rise," he added.
As a result of the dire economic and health care situation, rising numbers of Venezuelans are joining in an exodus that has set off alarms across Latin America.
According to a report cited by the International Organization for Migration in April, population outflows from Venezuela "considerably increased" in recent years, with an estimated 1.6 million Venezuelans abroad in 2017 compared with 700,000 in 2015.
Of the 1.6 million, it said approximately 885,000 were in South America, 308,000 in North America, 78,000 in Central America, 21,000 in the Caribbean and the rest scattered elsewhere.
The exodus has been more dramatic this year.
Last week, Ecuador declared a state of emergency in three of its provinces in an effort to cope with the growing influx of migrants from Venezuela. The Foreign Ministry said up to 4,000 Venezuelans are seeking entry into Ecuador each day.
Before leaving office Aug. 2, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos granted 440,000 refugees from Venezuela temporary residency permits for two years and urged Maduro's government to stem the spreading humanitarian crisis.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
