Venezuela crisis: 7.1m leave country since 2015

More than seven million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2015 amid an ongoing economic and political crisis, according to new UN data.

More than half of them face challenges accessing food, housing, and stable employment, the UN says.

But despite the difficulties facing them abroad, the flow of Venezuelans escaping turmoil in their homeland has not let up.

Aid agencies warn that these migrants risk being forgotten amid other crises.

"There's no question both that it is a major protracted crisis that is shaking the region [of Latin America]," David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, told the BBC.

"But it is also clear that the competing priorities for global attention - Ukraine, famine in East Africa, trauma in Afghanistan - are draining attention in a way that is quite dangerous."

More than 80% of those who have left Venezuela are living in Latin America and the Caribbean, in countries which often already struggle to provide health and education to their own nationals.

Venezuela's population has fallen from 30.08m in 2015 to an estimated 28.25m now based on latest UN figures.

"Many of the governments in Latin America are trying to do the right thing in managing the movement of Venezuelans, but it's a big challenge," Mr Miliband said on a visit to Colombia, which is hosting 2.48m Venezuelans.

"It's dangerous to presume that this burden can just be borne indefinitely," he warned.

Other aid agencies have also been sounding the alarm. The UN's Special Representative for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, Eduardo Stein, has said that half of all Venezuelan refugees and migrants cannot afford three meals a day and lack access to safe and dignified housing.

It is an experience 33-year old Sarahí recalls only too well. "For more than a year, I had to make a choice between paying for a roof over my head or paying for food," she recalls.

The investigative journalist - who covered human rights and freedom of speech - left Venezuela 10 years ago after receiving threats. She is withholding her surname for safety reasons.

Sarahí settled in neighbouring Colombia and is now helping integrate Venezuelan migrants who have followed in her footsteps.

She says that while Venezuelans' reasons for leaving are manifold - ranging from seeking access to health care and education, which have collapsed in many parts of Venezuela, to searching for employment - many face the same difficulties once they arrive.

"Many of us, even if we have university degrees, have to work in whatever we can to survive and to support our families who're still in Venezuela," she explains.

"I came on my own, with just one suitcase. It contained clothes for the colder climate in Bogotá, my university certificates and photos of my family."

While most Venezuelans have headed to Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, a growing number are embarking on an even more dangerous trek: north across the jungle expanse known as the Darién Gap to Panama and beyond.

More than 3,000 migrants, most of them Venezuelans, are making the crossing each day, figures from the Colombian authorities suggest.

The 97km-trek (60 miles) across swamps and mountains can take more than a week to complete and robberies and rapes are not uncommon in the lawless jungle expanse.

Getty images

Many of the Venezuelan migrants walk thousands of kilometers to reach their destination