Venezuela Crisis

Venezuela Map
Source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

The country

Venezuela (officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) is a country on the northern coast of South America that gained independence from Spain in 1811. Venezuela was one of three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830; the others are Ecuador and New Granada, which became Colombia. The country is bordering the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean and shares land borders with Colombia, Brazil and Guyana. Its capital is Caracas. Venezuela covers an area of 912,050 square kilometers. In 2025, the country has an estimated population of about 27.1 million people. Venezuela is one of the resource-rich countries in the world.

The humanitarian situation

Political turmoil and socioeconomic decline in Venezuela have led to the worst humanitarian crisis in South America and one of the largest migration crises in the world. Venezuela is experiencing a political and economic crisis marked by hyperinflation, limited food availability, medicine shortages, violent crime, and human right violations. Since 2014, more than 6.7 million Venezuelans have fled to Latin American and Caribbean countries, out of nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have left their country. In 2025, at least 7.9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in the South American country.

Since 2022, Venezuela has shown some signs of economic stabilization and growth, but the country still faces major socioeconomic challenges due to the massive economic contraction of the past decade. Despite the potential end of hyperinflation, Venezuela still faces a severe humanitarian crisis, with millions lacking access to clean water, adequate nutrition, healthcare, and other basic services.

In 2024, the country experienced economic growth, with estimates ranging from between 4 and 9 percent, driven by the recovery of the oil and non-oil sectors. The growth followed a ten-year, large-scale economic contraction of 75 percent of GDP, ongoing economic sanctions, and limited fiscal space for investing in basic services and social programs. Despite the recent growth, the economy remains 70 percent smaller than its 2013 peak, and the economic recovery has had a minimal impact on alleviating the needs of the most vulnerable.

More than 7.9 million refugees and migrants - about 30 percent of the population - have left Venezuela as a result of the humanitarian crisis and ongoing political and socioeconomic instability, triggering the largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history. The UN Refugee Agency says some 2,000 people flee Venezuela every day, displaced because of rising crime and violence and shortages of food, medicine and essential services. 

Seventeen countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean host around 85 percent of Venezuelans who have fled their home country. Neighboring Colombia is the largest host country for Venezuelan refugees and migrants (2.8 million people), followed by Peru (1.7 million), Brazil (627,000), Chile (532,000), and Ecuador (445,000). In 2025, some 7.5 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela as well as host communities are in need of humanitarian assistance.

According to the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), Venezuelans continue to leave their country. According to R4V, the ongoiing Venezuelan exodus is driven by multiple factors, including the country's difficult socioeconomic situation and cost of living crisis, political repression, erosion of human rights and freedoms, state-generated violence, and insecurity.

Women and girls affected by the Venezuelan regional crisis, including those living in host countries, remain at high risk of experiencing gender-based violence (GBV), according to an analysis by the non-governmental organization (NGO) International Rescue Committee (IRC). Displaced women and girls who travel along migration routes and resettle in other countries are at particular risk of experiencing GBV, the NGO reported.

Lack of livelihood opportunities and increasing insecurity continue to drive Venezuelan refugees and migrants to transit northward through the Darién Gap, a dangerous corridor between South and Central America located in a forested region between Colombia and Panama, exposing people on the move to threats to their lives and health.

According to the United Nations, 7.9 million Venezuelans are expected to require humanitarian assistance in 2025. Among them are 4.2 million children. The 2025 Venezuela Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) seeks $607 million to provide urgent assistance to 5.1 million of the most vulnerable people. As of June 2025, however, the HRP remains severely underfunded, receiving less than 9 percent of the necessary funds.

According to a Venezuelan humanitarian information platform, approximately 19.6 million people in Venezuela require humanitarian assistance.

The 2025 Venezuela Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) aims to assist 2.3 million people and requires $1.4 billion. As of June, the RMRP was only 7 percent funded. Due to extreme funding shortages, aid agencies recently published a reprioritized plan targeting only 578,000 people and requiring $447 million — 32 percent of the original amount.

Despite seasonal improvements in income and food price stability in Venezuela in 2023, FEWS NET reported that 2.5 million people in the country were in need of emergency food assistance. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reports that the food security situation in Venezuela remains critical, with 15 percent of the total population — around 4 million people — urgently needing food assistance, while a total of 40 percent of the population is experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity.

WFP continues to provide emergency food assistance, including school-based programs and livelihood interventions, to food-insecure populations in Venezuela.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Venezuela has the highest rates of malnutrition in South America. Nearly 82 percent of Venezuelans reportedly live in poverty, and 53 percent live in extreme poverty, earning incomes insufficient to access a basic food basket. Multidimensional poverty affects approximately 70 percent of the population.

Despite the improvement in economic indicators in the early months of 2025, including growth, reduced inflation rates, and stable prices and food supply, the majority of vulnerable households continue to face food insecurity due to the adverse effects of inflationary pressures over several years and the resulting loss of purchasing power. Insufficient wages and a lack of purchasing power continue to hinder households' ability to meet their basic needs.

On November 26, 2022, the Venezuelan government and the opposition (Unitary Platform, Plataforma Unitaria de Venezuela) signed the Mesa Social humanitarian agreement, committing both parties to pursue joint initiatives to benefit the Venezuelan people and address humanitarian needs using frozen Government of Venezuela funds for assistance in the South American country. 

Representatives from the government and the opposition agreed to prioritize funds to support Venezuela’s health system and expand emergency food assistance via the World Food Programme. The implementation of the humanitarian agreement could lead to a significant decrease in the number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in the country.

In 2024, the United Nations and partner organizations appealed for US$617 million to provide humanitarian assistance to 5.1 million of the most vulnerable people in Venezuela. As of early 2025, the Venezuela 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan was only 28 percent covered by funding.

In December 2023, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had announced that humanitarian organizations would need at least $1.59 billion to support 3 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela and their host communities in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024. However, the Venezuela Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) 2024 was only 28 percent funded as of early 2025.

 

Venezuela LocationThe security situation

The crisis in Venezuela began during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and deteriorated under the first presidency of Nicolás Maduro between 2014 and 2018. On January 10, 2019, Nicolás Maduro claimed the presidency for his second term in an election boycotted by most opposition parties and widely viewed as fraudulent. The last democratically-elected institution is the 2015 National Assembly. 

The president of the 2015 National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, was recognized by several countries as the interim president of Venezuela, while Maduro is recognized by most countries. In 2020, legislative elections were held in Venezuela for a new National Assembly, which the opposition boycotted and which were widely condemned as neither free nor fair. The resulting assembly is viewed by most opposition parties and many international actors as illegitimate.

On December 30, 2022, the Venezuelan opposition (Unitary Platform) dissolved the interim government led by Juan Guaidó. The vote was held in the opposition-controlled 2015 National Assembly. Delegates from three of the four main opposition parties voted to remove Guaidó as interim president and place responsibility for the interim government in the hands of a committee.

On October 17, 2023, the Maduro government and the Unity Platform reached an agreement (Barbados Agreement) to create conditions for inclusive and credible elections in the second half of 2024, including commitments to guarantee the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs and fundamental freedoms. The political agreement was welcomed by international observers as a necessary step in the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.

Also in October 2023, opposition parties organized their first primary elections since 2012 to choose a unity candidate, selecting María Corina Machado as the opposition candidate for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Machado was elected despite being banned from holding public office by Venezuelan authorities.

In January 2024, Venezuela's Supreme Court upheld the ban, preventing presidential candidate Machado from holding office. In an unprecedented show of unity, opposition leaders and opposition groups then united behind a single candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

The Venezuelan authorities honored their commitment to set an electoral timetable and hold the election. On July 28, 2024, Venezuelans went to the polls to vote in a historic presidential election. President Nicolás Maduro was officially declared the winner of the disputed presidential election on July 29, one day after the political opposition and the incumbent each claimed victory in the contest. 

Venezuela's National Electoral Council claimed that 51 percent of the vote went to Maduro, compared to 44 percent for González. Serious concerns exist that this result does not reflect the vote of the Venezuelan people. The Council's results largely contradicted exit polls of voters, which showed González winning by a wide margin. Venezuela's opposition said it had proof that challenger Edmundo González defeated President Maduro in the presidential election. Venezuelan electoral authorities have not released detailed precinct-level results.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for full transparency and urged the timely release of election results and a breakdown by precinct.  He also said that electoral authorities should work independently and without interference to ensure the free expression of the will of the electorate.

According to human rights groups, the election process in the South American country was marred by arrests of opposition members, arbitrary disqualifications of opposition candidates, and efforts to further restrict civil rights. According to media reports, the Venezuelan government allowed only 69,000 of the nearly 5 million voting-age Venezuelans who had fled or migrated abroad to cast ballots in an effort to limit voter turnout.

The presidential election took place against a backdrop of years of systematic human rights abuses by the government. While Venezuela is legally a multi-party constitutional republic, the authoritarian government led by Nicolás Maduro exercises control over all branches of government: the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, the offices of the attorney general and ombudsman, and the electoral institutions. Following the July 2024 presidential elections, the situation did not improve.

A United Nations Fact-Finding Mission of the Human Rights Council has documented human rights abuses attributed to the Maduro government, including torture, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and detentions without due process. The UN Fact-Finding Mission's latest report found that gross human rights violations continue to occur in Venezuela.

In its March 2025 update on Venezuela's human rights situation, the FFM stated that the Venezuelan government continues to engage in actions constituting the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds, committed in connection with the crimes of imprisonment or severe deprivation of physical liberty, as well as other crimes. The Mission reported that the arbitrary detention of individuals perceived as opponents of the government continues, including members of the political opposition, human rights defenders, and journalists.

In November 2021, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced his decision to open an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed in the country. In June 2023, ICC judges authorized the reopening of the investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in the country.

According to human rights groups, Venezuelan security forces have been responsible for extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and sexual and gender-based violence. They have jailed opponents, tortured detainees, prosecuted civilians in military courts, and cracked down on protesters. 

Violent crimes, such as homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking are common in the country. Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with 40,3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, 26.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, and 26.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024.

Donations

Your donation for the Venezuela emergency and the Venezuela refugee crisis can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.

Currently, there are only a few active appeals for the Venezuela crisis. You may also consider making an unearmarked donation for organizations active in the country.

To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.

Further Information

Last updated: 22/06/2025

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