Virus prevents diaspora Venezuelans from sending money home

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — After fleeing Venezuela along with millions of others amid the country's grueling humanitarian crisis, Misael Cocho made his way by bus to Peru — where he got odd jobs and sent money home monthly to support his mother and his 5-year-old son.

But just after Cocho landed his steadiest work so far in Lima, coronavirus cases skyrocketed. He lost his job, sold his TV to buy food and hasn't been able to wire money for months to Caracas to pay for food for the boy and Cocho's mother.

The pandemic's economic fallout left many Venezuelans abroad and the relatives back home who rely on them in dire straits. And as work disappears in countries like Peru and Colombia, humanitarian groups say many Venezuelans who fled hunger are now going hungry.

Cocho, 24, faces a dilemma: Should he stay in Peru in case the economy improves, or go back to Caracas where life is precarious but might not get worse?

“The truth is that this pandemic has really hit me hard,” he said.

Venezuela's population peaked at 30 million in 2015, but 5 million alarmed at the country's economic implosion migrated elsewhere in South America and to the U.S. and Europe, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. Most who stayed behind get by on a minimum wage that's the equivalent of about $2 a month.

About half of the Venezuelans who emigrated to other South American countries are so-called “informal” sector workers — laborers, vendors, street performers and waiters, estimated Provash Budden, regional Americas director for the Mercy Corps humanitarian aid group. Those jobs were hit hard by the virus' economic impact and there are few if any social safety nets to help the people who had them.

Cocho first found work in Peru shoveling manure and sweeping...