(Vheadline) - "According to the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative, John Fredrikson, Venezuela has all the institutional and juridical mechanisms needed to facilitate the high commissioner's work.

Speaking to the government Bolivarian News Agency (ABN), Fredrikson says Venezuela has refugees from several countries, such as Haiti and Iraq but the great majority are from Colombia.

Currently, there are 200,000 Colombians in Venezuela, who left their homes because of the armed conflict between guerrillas and paramilitaries.

'One thing that is important to highlight in our experience in Venezuela is that the government has opened the doors of its social programs and especially the Mercal, Barrio Adentro and educational missions to many of those refugees, whether they have documents or not and wherever they come from... in many other countries that is not possible.'

Venezuela's National Refugee Commission, affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), has offices in San Cristobal (Táchira), Guasdualito (Apure), and Maracaibo (Zulia).

The offices attend people seeking refugee status, providing them with a provisional ID document that allows them to seek work and education until the national commission can verify their status.

Fredrikson says that his organization is currently undertaking an update on the number of refugees in Venezuela.

'It would be useful if the government could set up a mechanism similar to that of Mission Identity, calling on all refugees to update their status,' he said"