US Navy ship provides free medical treatment to Venezuelan migrants
A US Navy ship docked in Colombia to help Venezuelan migrants, providing medical treatment to about 600 people per day.
Colombian and Venezuelan patients are seen after treatment at the US Navy hospital ship the USNS Comfort, off the coast of Riohacha, Colombia, November 27, 2018.
More than three million people have left Venezuela in recent years, with about one million settling in Colombia.
The government has spent millions of dollars in limited public funds to tend to them, including establishing a migrant camp in the capital, Bogota.
The navy does not keep exact numbers on the nationalities of patients, who are pre-screened by local authorities, instead focusing on treating anyone who needs care.
Medical staff on a US Navy ship treated more than 5,400 patients during its previous five-day stop in Turbo, a Colombian city near the border with Panama.
An estimated 2,500 will be seen in Riohacha. The trip is the ship's fifth visit to Colombia in the past 11 years.
TRT World's Manuel Rueda reports from the port city of Riohacha.
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