This Wednesday night the Government of Peru, chaired by the governor in charge, Dina Boluarte, announced a state of emergency in all its border areas with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Chile to increase control of foreign citizens in the country. According to her cabinet, the social security crisis that Peru is going through is due to the increase in the migratory flow.
The president in charge of Peru affirmed that this measure will allow the execution of police operations related to border control in order to prevent internal order and the constitutional rights of the population. Boluarte announced at a press conference that a state of emergency was declared in the border area of the departments of Tumbes, Piura, Cajamarca, Amazonas, Loreto, Madre de Dios and Tacna.
The authorities detailed that the Peruvian National Police (PNP) will maintain control of internal order, with the support of the Armed Forces, along with the fact that a “constitutional reform to authorize the intervention of the Armed Forces in areas of border”.
The High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees (Acnur) in Peru, Federico Agusti, that this speech of the government of criminalization towards the immigrants that live in the Andean country. According to the organization’s figures, the migrants who are most affected by this measure are Venezuelans and Haitians. “Criminalizing migration is a problem and I think there is a huge distortion in that. When you go to the border you don’t see criminals crossing the border, you see families, you see a woman with a child in her arms,” Agusti said.
The UNHCR representative urged “the media to be very responsible in the use of information, because a perception is generated that is not adequate and that perception ends up becoming discrimination.”
With information from EFE
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