Paper details

Abstract

The Venezuelan exodus put at the centre the humanitarian issue in the sphere of migration policies, normally considered as compassionate, in the South American region (Herrera & Berg, 2019). In particular, for Peru, Venezuelan migration, classified as a humanitarian crisis both internationally and nationally, impacted on migration policy, and, especially, on its relationship with international organizations responsible for humanitarian aid. The creation of the Regional Inter-Agency coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V) in 2018 implied a greater role for international organizations, and especially the IOM and UNHCR, who lead the platform. With the COVID-19 pandemic, humanitarian aid becomes a central axis of the migratory response in the country that welcomes more than a million of Venezuelans. The Peruvian State expressly asked international organizations to provide humanitarian aid to the migrant population, especially Venezuelans. In this paper, we propose to analyse the links between control and humanitarianism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. The paper is based on a series of 14 interviews conducted with civil society actors, private institutions and international organisations between July and August 2020.The present work is the result of the research developed by the scientific group Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas (CAMINAR) in different countries of the region.