A man in the Indigenous Pemón village of Wuruupo flips sun-drying casabe, a flat bread that is a staple of diets in the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela. The region, designated a national park, is home to ethnic Pemón people, who live scattered across the region in dozens of small villages, some of them very remote. Unemployment and a chronic lack of even basic services plague the Indigenous communities of the Gran Sabana, pushing some residents to leave their lands or resort to illegal wildcat mining, which has devastating health and environmental effects. The villagers in Wuruupo have taken the explicit decision not to allow mining on their lands and rely, instead, on small farms called “conucos,” where they grow yucca and other crops that are the staples of their diets. UNHCR works with many of these vulnerable Indigenous communities, such as Wuruupo, to help prevent displacement. The UN Refugee Agency has provided staple foods, as well as basic items, such as solar-powered lamps, that improve residents’ quality of life and allow people to remain on their ancestral lands. ; UNHCR works within Venezuela to provide support to refugees inside the South American country, as well as with vulnerable Venezuelan populations at risk of displacement, and also with those returning to the country from abroad.
