Protecting lives and alleviating suffering: Annual report on activities in Venezuela in 2023

Protecting lives and alleviating suffering: Annual report on activities in Venezuela in 2023

Article 08 February 2024 Venezuela

Day after day, in every community we reach, we come across something very valuable, a special trait we see in health-care workers, forensic personnel, community leaders, teachers and all the people we support: a determination to never give up. This means that even though armed violence has a devastating effect on their lives, they always strive to find solutions and carry on in spite of the challenging circumstances.

Throughout 2023, we carried out our humanitarian activities to protect and help people in areas affected by armed violence in the states of Bolívar, Caracas, Miranda, Aragua, Táchira, Apure and Zulia. We worked with them to implement various projects, listening not only to their needs, but also to their ideas and feedback and the stories they had to tell. The motivation behind this was to make 2023 a year for empowering people, for giving them an opportunity to demonstrate what they were capable of and strengthening their capacities where they needed support to enable them to reduce the adverse consequences of violence in their lives.

This report paints a picture, with facts and figures, of the impact of our action in the country and how we will continue our activities in 2024, working together with communities, the authorities, civil society and the Venezuelan Red Cross.

Find out more about our work with communities in 2023 here

 

These are some of the highlights of our humanitarian action in 2023:

Our humanitarian action benefited 649,982 people
directly or indirectly affected by armed violence in the country.
We coordinated with the Venezuelan Red Cross and the IFRC on activities in areas such as
community resilience-building, first-aid training, health care and restoring family links, none o
We promoted dialogue with weapon bearers to ensure that they know the rules of international humanitarian law, international
human rights law and international standards governing the use of force and that they apply them in their operations, with activities including training sessions, talks, round tables and workshops, which were attended by a total of 1,350 officers.
We carried out training and awareness sessions on
how to stay safe in armed violence settings, which were attended by 497 people, including teachers, health-care workers and Venezuelan Red Cross volunteers.
We worked with the prison authorities to improve living conditions
in places of detention and to ensure that detainees were being treated with dignity.
The ICRC’s forensic work in Venezuela aims to promote the incorporation of best practices into the medico-legal system,
which includes activities aimed at strengthening the capacities of forensic personnel to ensure the traceability, identification and and return of human remains and providing them with training and decent working conditions and facilities.
In cooperation with the Venezuelan Red Cross, we supported 267 families involved in search processes to
ensure that they received information about the fate and whereabouts of their missing loved ones.
We carried out economic security projects to support people whose livelihoods had been affected by violence
which mainly involved providing technical and specialist training and essential inputs, equipment and tools to help over 500 people and their families.
In 2023, we worked in communities in Táchira, Apure and Bolívar
with affected people, public institutions and the water authorities, using an inclusive approach, to improve access to water for around 244,780 people who had gone years without clean, safe water in their homes.
Annual Report on activities in 2023 and outlook for 2024

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