US Sends Another $6 Million to Help Colombia Cope with Venezuelan Refugees 
More than 1 million Venezuelans have fled the economic crisis and extreme food shortages
The Trump administration is sending another $6 million in humanitarian aid to Colombia to help it deal with the more than 1 million Venezuelans who have fled across the border. U.S. Agency for International Development chief Mark Green made the announcement Monday in the Colombian border city of Cucuta. Green said the Venezuelans are trying to escape what he called an avoidable man-made humanitarian crisis. "They are fleeing hunger. They are fleeing a lack of medicine and a lack of opportunity. More fundamentally, they are fleeing opposition and tyranny, and they are fleeing a dysfunctional despotic regime." The U.S. has already spent $32 million helping Venezuelans in the border region of Colombia, including supplying food, vaccines and aid to hospitals trying to cope with the sea of refugees. Green said the United States condemns Venezuela's "delusional and inhumane" policies and accused President Nicolas Maduro of human rights abuses. Venezuela's one-time oil-rich economy has collapsed in part because of the global drop in energy prices, failed socialist policies, and government corruption. There are extreme shortages of food, gasoline and medicine. Maduro has blamed the crisis on the United States and what he said is U.S.-backed opposition trying to drive him from power.