Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has urged the international community to provide more support to three South American countries with the most migrants from crisis-hit Venezuela.
As special envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jolie said 20,000 Venezuelan children were at risk of being without basic citizenship rights.
President of Colombia Ivan Duque speaks with UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie during a meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. Source: Presidency of Colombia
She is in Colombia on a two-day trip to meet Venezuelan migrants there and met with Colombian President Ivan Duque in Cartagena.
Four million Venezuelan refugees and migrants have fled economic and humanitarian crisis in their homeland.
More than a million are living in Colombia, where the government and aid agencies have scrambled to provide housing, food and healthcare to an ever-growing influx of migrants arriving in already-poor and violent border regions.
The parents of Venezuelan children born abroad often struggle to register their baby's birth, either because they do not have access to an ever-shrinking number of Venezuelan consulates or because they do not have migration papers.
Angelina Jolie speaking with Venezuelan citizens, in La Casa del Abuelo migrant center, in Riohacha, Colombia. Source: UNHCR
"The president and I spoke of the risk of statelessness for more than 20,000 Venezuelan children, his commitment to always helping children," Academy Award-winner Jolie, 44, said at a press conference.
"We agreed on the urgent need for the international community to give more support to Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, who are bearing the brunt of this crisis."
Venezuela's imploding economy has brought widespread shortages of basic foods and medicines, while political hostilities have led to waves of fatal violence.
