The number of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a “crisis moment” comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, said the OIM (Organization for Migration).

Describing those events as early warning signs, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Joel Millman, said funding and means of managing the outflow must be mobilised.

“This is building to a crisis moment that we’ve seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean,” he said.

Growing numbers are leaving Venezuela as President Maduro struggles to fence off attacks aimed at destroying, ultimately, the Bolivarian Revolution. 

Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward.

In Brazil, rioters this month drove hundreds back over the border. Peru tightened entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry passports instead of just national ID cards, though a judge in Ecuador on Friday rolled back a similar rule enacted there.

On Thursday, the IOM and UN refugee agency UNHCR called on Latin American countries to ease entry for Venezuelans, more than 1.6 million of whom have left since 2015.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said governments had made “commendable” efforts even though some reception capacities and services were overwhelmed.

But he said “some disturbing images” had emerged from the region in the past week that risked stigmatising Venezuelans who had fled and complicating efforts to integrate them.

An Ecuadorean judge, Judith Naranjo, on Friday lifted an order requiring that Venezuelans hold passports to be allowed entry, in response to a lawsuit filed by Ecuador’s state ombudsman together with local human rights groups.

The ruling gives the government 45 days to develop a plan to address the situation of Venezuelan migrants.

Venezuela’s information minister, Jorge Rodriguez, said a new package of economic measures meant to address hyperinflation would win over Venezuelans who had left the country.

“The conclusion is that Venezuelans are going to return and furthermore we invite them to return because we need them for this recovery plan,” Rodriguez said.

Venezuela on Monday cut five zeros from prices and pegged the country’s currency to the state-backed cryptocurrency.