Authorities in Peru announced Friday that they will follow Ecuador’s recent decision to require Venezuelans reaching the border to enter with a passport, a document that has grown increasingly difficult to obtain in Venezuela. Though his own country already imposed its own often ignored entry requirements for Venezuelans, Colombia migration director Christian Kruger warned that the new passport rule in neighbouring Ecuador could create a bottleneck at the Rumichaca International Bridge connecting the two countries. On Sunday morning, arguments broke out between migrants - those rallying for people to move on into Ecuador in groups while others argued they should stay and do things “the right way.”

More than a million Venezuelan migrants have entered Colombia over the last 15 months, according to official estimates, but Ecuador, Peru and Brazil also have received many. Most Venezuelan migrants want to continue heading across Ecuador to Peru (Dolores Ochoa/AP)

According to the United Nations, 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014 as their country reels from hyperinflation and severe shortages of everything from food and medicine to ink and paper for passports. “If something happens to them, we have a way to identify them,” he said.
Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile tighten border controls for Venezuelan migrants. Over 7% of Venezuela’s total population has fled the nation in two years.