Starving Venezuelans have reportedly resorted to ‘grave robbing’ in recent weeks; combing cemeteries and church yards for jewelry and “gold teeth” as runaway inflation has rendered the country’s currency virtually worthless.
According to the BBC, relatives are guarding the final resting places of relatives across the country to fend-off would-be robbers as food supplies dwindle throughout Venezuela.
“I come here every week, or every two weeks. I keep watch. I worry I’ll arrive one day and she’ll be gone,” said one man referring to his deceased wife. “When I buried her, you could just walk in here. but lately you can barely reach her grave, because every tomb has been opened and the remains taken out.”
“This is a lawless land, there is no respect for anything here,” he added. “God will punish those people that are doing this.”
CRISIS DEEPENS: ‘Millions’ of Venezuelans Without Water, Food, Medicine
A series of crippling blackouts are rapidly escalating Venezuela’s severe humanitarian crisis this week; with local media reporting “millions” are coping with a lack of water, food, and medical supplies across the impoverished country.
“Millions of Venezuelans were left without running water Monday amid a series of massive blackouts, forcing President Nicolas Maduro to announce electricity rationing and school closures as the government struggles to cope with a deepening economic crisis,” writes Yahoo News.
“We have small children and we aren’t able to give them a drop of water to drink,” said one resident.
“We fill up from a well near here but we don’t know if it’s drinkable. But we’re using it,” added another.
Maduro’s recent plan involves closing schools and other government-run facilities as well as “shortening” the national work day to reduce electrical demand.
Read the full report at Yahoo News.
DEVELOPING: Desperate Venezuelans Turn to ‘Sewage Pipes’ for Water as Blackout Continues
Desperate Venezuelans turned to “sewage drains” and other drastic measures to obtain water Tuesday as the nation’s blackout continued to cripple the country’s infrastructure and crumbling economy.
“As Venezuela’s five-day power blackout left homes without water, Lilibeth Tejedor found herself looking for it on Monday in the last place she would have imagined – a drain pipe feeding into a river carrying sewage through the capital,” reports Reuters.
“Tejedor, 28, joined dozens of people who had flocked to the Guaire river, which snakes along the bottom of a sharp ravine alongside Caracas’ main highway, to fill up a four-gallon (15 liter) plastic container,” adds the report.
“The ones that are most affected are the children, because how do you tell a child that there’s no water?” said one resident.
Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has publicly blamed the blackout on US authorities; accusing the Trump administration of launching “electrical warfare” against his regime.
Read the full report at Reuters.
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