Weekly Situation Update (6-12 January 2020) As of 13 January 2020

LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN Weekly Situation Update (6-12 January 2020) As of 13 January 2020

KEY FIGURES MEXICO & CENTRAL AMERICA: MIGRANTS & REFUGEES MEXICO caravans that departed from Honduras United States border officials reported en route to the United States in those 72% on 9 January that the number of people years. DECREASE IN DETENTIONS AT US arrested or stopped from crossing BORDER FROM MAY TO DECEMBER into the US declined in December, the EXTRACONTINENTAL MIGRANTS 2019 seventh straight month numbers have The Migration Policy Unit of Mexico's dropped. Ministry of the Interior recently reported a 2,684 per cent increase in the 29.1K The 40,620 arrests in December 2019 are extracontinental migrant population in HONDURAN ASYLUM REQUESTS a 72 per cent decrease from the 13-year Mexico. TO MEXICO IN 2019 high of 144,116 arrests reported for May 2019. December figures reveal a shifting African migrants, mostly from trend, with Mexico now accounting for Cameroon and Congo, represent the half of the arrests, more than triple the most significant increase, with 250 per next highest nationality and overtaking cent increase between January-August Guatemala and Honduras as the primary 2019 compared to January-August 2018. home countries of detained migrants. The Ministry also notes a 73 per cent HONDURAS increase in South American migrants, Data from the Ministry of the Interior’s mostly from Colombia and Venezuela, Mexican Refugee Aid Commission compared to 2018. The Asian migrant (COMAR) shows that the 54,353 population also increased, albeit a asylum seekers from Honduras between modest 0.9 per cent increase from 4,736 2013 and 2019 are the largest group of in 2018 to 4,783 in 2019. asylum seekers in Mexico. Out of the 126,818 asylum seekers on record in this reporting period, Hondurans represent 42 per cent, well above the next highest group of 24,517 Salvadorans.

COMAR says that the Government has only processed 13,123 requests from Honduran asylum seekers (24 per cent) since 2013, granting asylum to 5,690, denying 4,974 and providing complementary protection to another 2,459 while the remaining 41,230 either continue to await their process or have withdrawn their request.

Asylum requests from Hondurans skyrocketed in 2018 and 2019 (13,667 Sources: Customs and Border Protection (United States) and 29,146, respectively), coinciding Government of Mexico with the start of the so-called migrant

The numbers presented are for orientation and not conclusive. Sources are reports from national authorities from public websites. Creation date: 13 January 2020 Sources: Reliefweb Feedback: [email protected] | www.unocha.org/rolac | www.reliefweb.int p. 1/3 LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN Weekly Situation Update (6-12 January 2020) As of 13 January 2020

KEY FIGURES EL SALVADOR: FORCED DISPLACEMENT On 9 January, the National Assembly be tasked with implementing and approved a law that recognizes and evaluating national IDP policy and 71.5K protects people who have been with coordinating associated State PEOPLE FORCIBLY DISPLACED IN internally displaced due to chronic institutions. The law will also create an EL SALVADOR BETWEEN 2006 AND violence. The approval of the reform, IDP registry. 2016 first ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in 2018, marks a political UNHCR, who provided technical milestone in El Salvador, where an support in drafting the legislation, estimated 71,500 people have been reacted favourably to the development, forcibly displaced between 2006 and saying that it opens the door for tens of 2016. thousands of forcibly displaced people to access life-saving assistance and have The law provides the groundwork to effective access to justice. establish a comprehensive national system for various State institutions to work together to both respond and prevent forced displacement. The law will create the National Attention Sources: and Protection System for Forcibly Government of El Salvador Displaced People (SINAPI), who will UNHCR

KEY FIGURES GUATEMALA: FOOD SECURITY Recently published information from consecutive year of declining yearly the National Food and Nutrition death tolls. 14.9K Security Information System (SIINSAN) CASES OF ACUTE MALNUTRITION shows that the 14,918 acute malnutrition The head of the Food and Nutrition IN CHILDREN UNDER FIVE IN 2019, cases in children under five in 2019 are Security Secretariat (SESAN) attributes THE HIGHEST SINCE 2015 the highest caseload since the 14,657 the rise in cases to scaled-up efforts to registered in 2015. document cases, especially in children with limited access to public health The 2019 caseload is a 21.7 per cent services, as well as the long-term effects increase from 2018, as well. This of the prolonged drought and heat wave increase from 2018 to 2019 follows a in mid-2018. three-year decline from 2016 to 2018, where cases dropped from 13,418 in 2018 to 12,430 in 2017, and then to 12,382 in 2018.

Despite the renewed increase in cases, the 75 deaths attributed to chronic Sources: undernutrition are the fewest in recent National Food and Nutrition Security Information years, with 2019 representing the fifth System (Guatemala)

The numbers presented are for orientation and not conclusive. Sources are reports from national authorities from public websites. Creation date: 13 January 2020 Sources: Reliefweb Feedback: [email protected] | www.unocha.org/rolac | www.reliefweb.int p. 2/3 LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN Weekly Situation Update (6-12 January 2020) As of 13 January 2020

KEY FIGURES PERU: FLOODING The National Civil Defence Institute According to INDECI, several rivers (INDECI) reported flooding and in the area have risen past their flood 1K landslides across the central Peruvian levels, prompting the spate of incidents. EMERGENCIES REPORTED ACROSS department of Huánuco since the start of INDECI reports that the they have PERU SINCE BEGINNING OF RAINY 2020, affectinng more than 300 families. registered 1,055 emergencies across Peru SEASON IN SEPTEMBER 2019 since the beginning the rainy season in On 9 January, the Government declared September. Of this total, there are 124 a 60-day state of emergency over flash active emergencies. INDECI’s seasonal floods and mudslides locally known as tally to date also includes 1,347 affected huaicos in the Chupaca province of the homes, 52 destroyed homes and 240 central Peruvian department of Junín rendered uninhabitable. to allow local authorities to respond to damages to homes, schools, health centres, roads, crop land and power Sources: National Civil Defence Institute (INDECI) supply.

KEY FIGURES ECUADOR: VOLCANIC ACTIVITY Authorities in the Azuay, Cañar and effects on homes and crops in affected Chimborazo provinces are monitoring areas. SNGRE has delivered 14,000 14K the Sangay volcano in the Morona volcano protection kits consisting of VOLCANIC ASH PROTECTION KITS Santiago province after ash from goggles and masks to communities near DELIVERED TO COMMUNITIES recent volcanic activity began to fall the volcano as a preventive measure. NEAR SANGAY VOLCANO over communities in the south-central provinces. The Sangay volcano began SNGRE is conducting a communications erupting on 7 May 2019, featuring campaign to remind residents that there explosions, gas emissions, ash and lahar are several permanently active volcanos flows into local rivers. in Ecuador, including the Chiles- Cerro Negro, Reventador, Sangay and Technicians from the National Tungurahua, and urging residents to Sources: National Emergency Risk Management Service Emergency Risk Management Service be prepared and to heed alerts from (Ecuador) (SNGRE) are evaluating the ashfall’s authorities.

CORRIGENDUM BAHAMAS: HURRICANE DORIAN The Minister of Health recently clarified 80 people who had been exposed to media reports of 80 people living in tuberculosis at some point in their lives, shelters testing positive for tuberculosis. and not that they contracted the illness while in the shelters. These 80 people The Minister explained that the are neither symptomatic nor presumed screening process of the sheltered to be contagious, according to the population due to the lone confirmed Minister. Sources: active case of tuberculosis discovered in Ministry of Health (Bahamas) early December resulted in identifying