Misplaced Pages

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (April 2024) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Crisis in Venezuela
Around 2010, economic growth in Venezuela stagnated, and since 2014 GDP per capita of Venezuela has decreased by two-third, leading to cascading effects.
Date	2 June 2010 – present (14 years, 6 months, 2 weeks and 3 days)
Location	Venezuela
Caused by	Bolivarian Revolution and presidency of Hugo Chávez Desire for Hugo Chávez to seek a third term as President of Venezuela Economic crisis caused by the failure of the country's economic policies Continued decline in oil prices since the financial crisis of 2007–2008
Status	Ongoing
Parties
GPPSB PSUV PCV PPT MRT MUD / AD / PU PJ UNT VP LCR
Lead figures
Hugo Chávez † Nicolás Maduro Diosdado Cabello Delcy Rodríguez Tareck El Aissami Leopoldo López Juan Guaidó Henrique Capriles María Corina Machado Edmundo González

Crisis in Venezuela
Causes
Bolivarian Revolution Economic policy of Hugo Chávez Economic policy of Nicolás Maduro
Effects
Refugee crisis Energy crisis 2019 blackouts 2024 blackouts Zulia energy collapse Defections Hyperinflation International sanctions Interventions of political parties Shortages Censorship Catatumbo campaign Xenophobic incidents Pemon conflict
Events
Dakazo La Salida Detention of Antonio Ledezma 2016 recall movement 2017 constitutional crisis| 2018 Nicolás Maduro re-election campaign Presidential crisis 2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela Venezuela Aid Live COVID-19 pandemic 2022 recall movement 2023 Unitary Platform presidential primaries 2024 Venezuelan political crisis
Elections
2013 presidential election 2015 parliamentary election 2017 referendum 2017 Constituent Assembly election 2018 presidential election 2020 parliamentary election 2023 referendum 2024 presidential election
Protests
2013 2014 2017 2019 2024
Timeline
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Armed violence
Caracas helicopter incident 2017 National Assembly attack Attack on Fort Paramacay El Junquito raid Caracas drone attack 2019 uprising attempt 2020 Barquisimeto shooting Operation Gideon (2020) 2021 Apure clashes 2022 Arauca clashes
Venezuela portal
v t e

An ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis began in Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has worsened during the presidency of successor Nicolás Maduro. It has been marked by hyperinflation, escalating starvation, disease, crime and mortality rates, resulting in massive emigration.

It is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history, and the worst facing a country in peacetime since the mid-20th century. The crisis is often considered more severe than the Great Depression in the United States, the 1985–1994 Brazilian economic crisis, or the 2008–2009 hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. Writers have compared aspects, such as unemployment and GDP contraction, to that of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the 1992–95 Bosnian War, and those in Russia, Cuba and Albania following the Revolutions of 1989.

In June 2010, Chávez declared an "economic war" due to increasing shortages in Venezuela. The crisis intensified under the Maduro government, growing more severe as a result of low oil prices in 2015, and a drop in oil production from lack of maintenance and investment. In January 2016, the opposition-led National Assembly declared a "health humanitarian crisis". The government failed to cut spending in the face of falling oil revenues, denied the existence of a crisis, and violently repressed opposition. Extrajudicial killings by the government became common, with the UN reporting 5,287 killings by the Special Action Forces in 2017, with at least another 1,569 killings in the first six months of 2019, stating some killings were "done as a reprisal for participation in anti-government demonstrations." Political corruption, chronic shortages of food and medicine, closure of businesses, unemployment, deterioration of productivity, authoritarianism, human rights violations, gross economic mismanagement and high dependence on oil have contributed to the crisis.

As a response to human rights abuses, the degradation in the rule of law, and corruption, the European Union, the Lima Group, the US and other countries have applied sanctions against government officials and members of the military and security forces. The US extended its sanctions to the petroleum sector. Supporters of Chávez and Maduro said the problems result from an "economic war" on Venezuela, falling oil prices, international sanctions, and the business elite, while critics of the government say the cause is economic mismanagement and corruption. Most observers cite anti-democratic governance, corruption, and mismanagement of the economy as causes. Others attribute the crisis to the "socialist", "populist", or "hyper-populist" nature of the government's policies, and the use of these to maintain political power. National and international analysts and economists stated the crisis is not the result of a conflict, natural disaster, or sanctions, but the consequences of populist policies and corrupt practices that began under the Chávez administration's Bolivarian Revolution and continued under Maduro.

The crisis has affected the life of the average Venezuelan on all levels. By 2017, hunger had escalated to the point where almost 75% of the population had lost an average of over 8 kg (over 19 lbs) and more than half did not have enough income to meet their basic food needs. By 2021 20% of Venezuelans (5.4 million) had left the country. The UN analysis estimates in 2019 that 25% of Venezuelans needed some form of humanitarian assistance. Following increased international sanctions throughout 2019, the Maduro government abandoned policies established by Chávez such as price and currency controls, which resulted in the country seeing a temporary rebound from economic decline before COVID entered Venezuela. As a response to the devaluation of the official bolívar currency, by 2019 the population increasingly started relying on US dollars for transactions.

According to the national Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI), by 2021 95% of the population was living in poverty based on income, out of which 77% lived under extreme poverty, the highest figure ever recorded in the country. In 2022, after the implementation of mild economic liberalization, poverty decreased and the economy grew for the first time in 8 years. Despite these improvements, Venezuela continues to have the highest rate of inequality in the Americas. Although food shortages and hyperinflation have largely ended, inflation remains high.

History

Chávez presidency

After attempting a coup d'état in 1992 and being pardoned by President Rafael Caldera, Hugo Chávez was elected president and maintained the presidency from 1999 until his death in 2013. Increasing oil prices in the early 2000s led to levels of funds not seen in Venezuela since the 1980s. Chávez established Bolivarian missions, aimed at providing public services to improve economic, cultural, and social conditions. According to Corrales and Penfold, "aid was disbursed to some of the poor and, more gravely, in a way that ended up helping the president and his allies and cronies more than anyone else". Nonetheless, poverty was cut more than 20 percent between 2002 and 2008. The Missions entailed the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor, and the enactment of food and housing subsidies. A 2010 OAS report indicated achievements in addressing illiteracy, healthcare and poverty, and economic and social advances. The quality of life for Venezuelans had also improved according to a UN Index. Teresa A. Meade wrote that Chávez's popularity strongly depended "on the lower classes who have benefited from these health initiatives and similar policies." According to Chosun Ilbo, Venezuela began to face economic difficulties due to Chávez's populist policies. On 2 June 2010, Chávez declared an "economic war" due to increasing shortages in Venezuela.

Political corruption, chronic shortages of food and medicine, closure of businesses, unemployment, deterioration of productivity, authoritarianism, human rights violations, gross economic mismanagement and high dependence on oil have also contributed to the worsening crisis.

The social works initiated by Chávez's government relied on oil products, the keystone of the Venezuelan economy, leading to Dutch disease according to Javier Corrales. By the early 2010s, economic actions taken by Chávez's government during the preceding decade, such as overspending and price controls, became unsustainable. Venezuela's economy faltered while poverty, inflation and shortages in Venezuela increased. According to Martinez Lázaro, professor of economics at the IE Business School in Madrid, the economic woes Venezuela continued to suffer under Maduro would have occurred even if Chávez were still in power. In early 2013, shortly after Chávez's death, Foreign Policy stated that whoever succeeded Chávez would "inherit one of the most dysfunctional economies in the Americas—and just as the bill for the deceased leader's policies comes due."

Maduro presidency

Following Chávez's death in 2013, Nicolás Maduro became president after defeating his opponent Henrique Capriles Radonski by 235,000 votes, a 1.5% margin. Maduro continued most of the existing economic policies of his predecessor Chávez. Upon entering the presidency, his administration faced a high inflation rate and large shortages of goods, problems left over from Chávez's policies.

Maduro said capitalist speculation had driven high rates of inflation and created widespread shortages of basic necessities. He enacted economic measures against political opponents, who he and loyalists stated were behind an international economic conspiracy. Maduro was criticized for concentrating on public opinion, instead of tending to practical issues which economists had warned about, or creating ideas to improve Venezuela's economic prospects.

By 2014, Venezuela had entered an economic recession and by 2016, the country had an inflation rate of 800%, the highest in its history.

The crisis intensified under the Maduro government, growing more severe as a result of low oil prices in early 2015, and a drop in Venezuela's oil production from lack of maintenance and investment. The government failed to cut spending in the face of falling oil revenues, and has dealt with the crisis by denying its existence and violently repressing opposition. Extrajudicial killings by the Venezuelan government became common, with the United Nations (UN) reporting 5,287 killings by the Special Action Forces (FAES) in 2017, with at least another 1,569 killings recorded in the first six months of 2019; the UN had "reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions" and characterized the security operations as "aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government". The UN also stated that the Special Action Forces "would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had resisted authority" and that some of the killings were "done as a reprisal for participation in anti-government demonstrations."

In January 2016, the National Assembly declared a "health humanitarian crisis" given the "serious shortage of medicines, medical supplies and deterioration of humanitarian infrastructure", asking Maduro's government to "guarantee immediate access to the list of essential medicines that are basic and indispensable and that must be accessible at all times." In August, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon declared that there was a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela caused by the lack of basic needs, including food, water, sanitation and clothing. Before the 2019 presidential crisis, the Maduro government denied several offers of aid, stating that there was not a humanitarian crisis and that such claims were used to justify foreign intervention. Maduro's refusal of aid worsened the effects of Venezuela's crisis.

In March 2019, The Wall Street Journal said that "Mr. Maduro has long used food and other government handouts to pressure impoverished Venezuelans to attend pro-government rallies and to support him during elections as the country's economic meltdown has intensified." In 2019, The Economist wrote that the Maduro government had obtained "extra money from selling gold (both from illegal mines and from its reserves) and narcotics".

Elections and protests

Since 2010, Venezuela has been suffering a socioeconomic crisis under Maduro, and briefly under his predecessor, Chávez. As a result of discontent with the government, in the 2015 parliamentary election the opposition was elected to the majority in the National Assembly, after which the outgoing (lame duck) National Assembly—consisting of Bolivarian officials—filled the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the highest court in Venezuela, with Maduro allies.

Maduro disavowed the National Assembly in 2017 leading to the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis; as of 2018, some considered the National Assembly the only "legitimate" institution left in the country, and human rights organizations said there were no independent institutional checks on presidential power. Protests grew to their most "combative" since they began in 2014. On 1 May 2017, Maduro called for a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution to replace the 1999 Venezuela Constitution. The members of the Constituent Assembly would not be elected in open elections, but selected from social organizations loyal to Maduro. It would also allow him to stay in power during the interregnum and skip the 2018 presidential elections.

Many countries considered these actions a bid by Maduro to stay in power indefinitely, and over 40 countries, along with NGOs, stated that they would not recognize the 2017 Constituent National Assembly (ANC). The Democratic Unity Roundtable—the opposition to the incumbent ruling party—boycotted the election, and the incumbent Great Patriotic Pole, dominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, won almost all seats in the assembly by default.

The ANC was sworn in on 4 August 2017, and the next day declared itself to be the government branch with supreme power in Venezuela, banning the opposition-led National Assembly from performing actions that would interfere with the assembly.

In February 2018 Maduro called presidential elections, four months before the prescribed date. There were many irregularities, including the banning from standing of several major opposition parties. Maduro was declared the winner in May 2018. Many said the elections were invalid. Politicians both internally and internationally said Maduro was not legitimately elected, and considered him an ineffective dictator. In the months leading up to his 10 January 2019 inauguration, Maduro was pressured to step down by nations and bodies including the Lima Group (excluding Mexico), the United States, and the OAS; this pressure was increased after the new National Assembly of Venezuela was sworn in on 5 January 2019.

The 2019 presidential crisis came to a head when the National Assembly stated that the results of the May 2018 presidential election were invalid and declared National Assembly president Juan Guaidó to be the acting president, citing several clauses of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution.

2024 Venezuelan political crisis

The 2024 Venezuelan political crisis is the crisis that continued after the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election results were announced. Maduro ran for a third consecutive term, while former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia represented the Unitary Platform (Spanish: Plataforma Unitaria Democrática; PUD), the main opposition political alliance, after the Venezuelan government barred leading candidate María Corina Machado from participating.

Academics, news outlets and the opposition provided "strong evidence" according to The Guardian. to suggest that González won the election by a wide margin. The government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) announced results claiming a narrow Maduro victory on 29 July. A 6 August article in The New York Times stated that the CNE declaration that Maduro won "plunged Venezuela into a political crisis that has claimed at least 22 lives in violent demonstrations, led to the jailing of more than 2,000 people and provoked global denunciation." In the aftermath of the government's announcement of falsified results, protests broke out across the country, as the Maduro administration initiated Operation Tun Tun, a crackdown on dissent, and detained opposition political figures while refusing to relinquish power. Criminalization of protest was widely condemned by human rights organizations. Maduro did not acknowledge the results which showed him losing the election, and instead asked the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) on 1 August to audit and approve the results. On 22 August, as anticipated, the TSJ described the CNE's statement of Maduro winning the election as "validated".

Basic needs

Poverty

The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2019 that poverty was double that of 2014. A study from Andrés Bello Catholic University indicated that by 2019 at least 8 million Venezuelans did not have enough to eat. A UN report estimated in March 2019 that 94% of Venezuelans live in poverty, and that one quarter of Venezuelans need some form of humanitarian assistance.

According to the Living Conditions Survey by the Andrés Bello Catholic University (Encovi in Spanish, Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida), by 2021 94.5% of the population was in poverty based on income, out of which 76.6% lived under extreme poverty, the highest figure ever recorded in the country.

Food and water

More than 70% of Venezuela's food is imported; Venezuela became so dependent on food imports that it could no longer afford when the price of oil dropped in 2014. Chávez gave the military control of food, and nationalized much of the industry, which was then neglected, leading to production shortages. With a "diminished food supply", Maduro put "generals in charge of everything from butter to rice". With the military in charge of food, food trafficking became profitable, bribes and corruption common, and food did not reach the needy. The government imports most of the food the country needs, it is controlled by the military, and the price paid for food is higher than justified by market prices. Venezuelans were spending "all day waiting in lines" to buy rationed food, "pediatric wards filled up with underweight children, and formerly middle-class adults began picking through rubbish bins for scraps".

Several other factors have led to shortages: imports over the two years until the end of 2017 declined by two-thirds; hyperinflation has made food too costly for many Venezuelans; and for those who depend on food boxes supplied by the government, "these do not reach all Venezuelans who need them, provision of boxes is intermittent, and receipt is often linked to political support of the government".

Corruption became a problem in the distribution of food. The operations director at one food import business says "he pays off a long roster of military officials for each shipment of food he brings in from ... the US. It's an unbroken chain of bribery from when your ship comes in until the food is driven out in trucks." A National Guard lieutenant denies this charge, saying corruption would be worse if the military were not involved; government and military officials say the opposition is overstating the corruption problem for their own benefit. Retired General Antonio Rivero said that "Maduro is trying to prevent soldiers from going hungry and being tempted to participate in an uprising against an increasingly unpopular government", adding that using the military to control food distribution has "drained the feeling of rebellion from the armed forces" by giving soldiers access to food denied others, with the resulting corruption increasing shortages for the general public.

The colectivos are also involved in food trafficking, selling food on the black market; a colectivo leader told InSight Crime that trafficking food and medicine is as profitable as drug-running, but carries less risk. With shadowy connections to the government, The Washington Post says "some have been put in charge of the distribution of government food packages in poor areas—giving them control over hungry neighborhoods."

The Associated Press reports that people gather every evening in downtown Caracas in search of food thrown out on a sidewalk; the people are typically unemployed, but are "frequently joined by small business owners, college students and pensioners—people who consider themselves middle class even though their living standards have long ago been pulverized by triple-digit inflation, food shortages and a collapsing currency". A waste collection official in Maracaibo reported that most of the trash bags he received had been gone through by people searching for food. One dump reports finding parts of dismembered animals, like "dogs, cats, donkeys, horses and pigeons" and there is evidence that people are eating wildlife such as anteaters, flamingos, vultures and lizards.

"Hunger, malnutrition, and severe food shortages are widespread in all Venezuela", according to Human Rights Watch. Doctors at 21 public hospitals in 17 Venezuelan states told The New York Times in 2017 that "their emergency rooms were being overwhelmed by children with severe malnutrition—a condition they had rarely encountered before the economic crisis began", and that "hundreds have died". The government has responded with "a near-total blackout of health statistics, and by creating a culture in which doctors are often afraid to register cases and deaths that may be associated with the government's failures".

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN said that less than 5% of Venezuelans were undernourished between 2008 and 2013, but that number had more than doubled, to almost 12% from 2015 and 2017, representing 3.7 million people. A 2016 survey found that almost three-quarters of the population said that, because of improper nutrition, they had lost on average 8.7 kg (19.4 lbs) and 64% said they lost 11 kg (24 lbs) in 2017. A 2016 Venebarometro poll of 1,200 Venezuelans found almost half are no longer able to eat three daily meals; the government blames this on an "economic war" they say is waged by the opposition.

A UN report said that because of lack of water and sanitation, 4.3 million Venezuelans needed assistance in 2019.

During the 2019 Venezuelan blackouts which started on 7 March, the water distribution system also had shortages. Analysts said that two-thirds of Venezuela's population (20 million people) were without water, partially or completely, in the weeks after the blackouts. The head of the infectious disease department at the University Hospital of Caracas, María Eugenia Landaeta said that, without access to clean water, the chance of people contracting bacterial infections increased, and that doctors had seen during the blackouts "surges in diarrhea, typhoid fever and hepatitis A", while non-sterile water and lack of hygiene was contributing to postpartum infections.

By 2017, hunger had escalated to the point where almost seventy-five percent of the population had lost an average of over 8 kg (over 19 lbs) in weight and more than half did not have enough income to meet their basic food needs. An UN report estimated in March 2019 that 94% of Venezuelans lived in poverty, and by 2021 almost twenty percent of Venezuelans (5.4 million) had left their country. The UN analysis estimates in 2019 that 25% of Venezuelans need some form of humanitarian assistance. Venezuela led the world in murder rates, with 81.4 per 100,000 people killed in 2018, making it the third most violent country in the world. Following increased international sanctions throughout 2019, the Maduro government abandoned policies established by Chávez such as price and currency controls, which resulted in the country seeing a temporary rebound from economic decline before COVID-19 entered Venezuela the following year. As a response to the devaluation of the official bolívar currency, by 2019 the population increasingly started relying on US dollars for transactions. Maduro described dollarization as an "escape valve" that helps the recovery of the country, the spread of productive forces in the country and the economy. However, Maduro said that the Venezuelan bolívar remained as the national currency.

Health care

During the Bolivarian Revolution, the government began providing free healthcare, with Cuban medical professionals providing aid. The government's failure to concentrate on healthcare and a reduction in spending on healthcare, along with unchecked government corruption resulted in avoidable deaths due to severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment, and the emigration of medical professionals to other countries.

Venezuela's reliance on imported goods and the complicated exchange rates initiated under Chávez led to increasing shortages during the late 2000s and into the 2010s that affected the availability of medicines and medical equipment in the country. Associated Press says the government stopped publishing medical statistics in 2010. The Health Minister changed multiple times during Chávez's presidency. According to a high-ranking official of Venezuela's Health Ministry, the ministers were treated as scapegoats whenever issues with public health arose in Venezuela. He also said that officials of the Health Ministry engaged in corruption to enrich themselves by selling goods intended for public healthcare to others.

Early in the Maduro presidency, the government could not supply enough money for medical supplies among healthcare providers, with the president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation saying that 9 of 10 large hospitals had only 7% of required supplies and private doctors reporting numbers of patients that are "impossible" to count "dying from easily treatable illnesses when Venezuela's downward economic slide accelerated after Chávez's death". Many Venezuelans died avoidable deaths with medical professionals having scarce resources and using methods that were replaced decades ago. In February 2014, doctors at the University of Caracas Medical Hospital stopped performing surgeries due to the lack of supplies, even though nearly 3,000 people required surgery.

By early 2015, only 35% of hospital beds were available and 50% of operating rooms could not function due to the lack of resources. In March 2015, a Venezuelan NGO, Red de Medicos por la Salud, reported that there was a 68% shortage of surgical supplies and a 70% shortage of medicines in Venezuelan pharmacies. In 2018, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported that approximately one-third (22,000 of 66,138) of registered physicians left Venezuela as of 2014. Rosemary DiCarlo from the UN said that 40% of medical professionals had left Venezuela and supplies of medicine were at 20% of levels needed. The Venezuelan Medical Federation said that doctors were leaving the public health care system because of shortages of drugs and equipment and poor pay. In August 2015 Human Rights Watch said "We have rarely seen access to essential medicines deteriorate as quickly as it has in Venezuela except in war zones." In 2015, the government reported that a third of patients admitted to public hospitals died. The medications of individuals who die are re-distributed through small-scale and local efforts, with the help of the families of the deceased, to try to supply surviving patients.

One study of 6,500 households by three of the main universities in Venezuela found that "74% of the population had lost on average nineteen pounds in 2016". In April 2017 Venezuela's health ministry reported that maternal mortality jumped by 65% in 2016 and that the number of infant deaths rose by 30%. It also said that the number of cases of malaria was up by 76%. Shortly after Minister of Health Antonieta Caporale released in 2017 this data, and health statistics showing increases in 2016 infant and maternal mortality and infectious diseases, Maduro fired her and replaced the physician with a pharmacist close to vice-president Tareck El Aissami, Luis López Chejade. The publications were removed from the Ministry's website, and no further health data has been made available, although the government had produced health bulletins for several decades.

In March 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that the "collapse of Venezuela's health system, once one of the best in Latin America, has led to a surge in infant and maternal mortality rates and a return of rare diseases that were considered all but eradicated. Health officials say malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue and tuberculosis are now spreading from Venezuela to neighboring countries as Venezuelan refugees surge over borders." The United Nations estimated in 2019 that 2.8 million Venezuelans have healthcare needs, 300,000 are at risk of dying with cancer, diabetes or HIV as they have not had access to medicine for more than a year, and preventable diseases like diphtheria, malaria, measles and tuberculosis are rising in 2019, along with hepatitis A, because of sanitation and lack of access to water. The April 2019 HRW/Johns Hopkins report showed this rise in infectious and preventable diseases, as well as increasing malnutrition, infant and maternal death, and undertreatment of HIV. Inflation and medicine shortages have meant that patients are asked to bring their own food, water and soap, and medical supplies including scalpels and syringes. In August 2019, as part of regional efforts to help Venezuelan migrants, the United States promised that it will provide thousands of doses of HIV medication to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to treat those who have it.

2019 Human Rights Watch/Johns Hopkins report

In April 2019, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published the results of a joint, year-long research project in a report entitled "Venezuela's humanitarian emergency: Large-scale UN response needed to address health and food crises". Combined with data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the PAHO and Venezuelan sources, the report was based on 156 interviews with Venezuelan emigrants to Colombia and Brazil, officials from relief and humanitarian organizations, Venezuelan health care professionals, and UN and government officials from Brazil and Colombia. Most of the interviews occurred in July or August 2018 in visits by the experts to the Venezuelan border towns of Cúcuta, Colombia and Boa Vista or Pacaraima, Brazil.

The Washington Post stated that the HRW/Johns Hopkins report "paints an extremely grim picture of life in Venezuela, whose once-prosperous economy has imploded because of mismanagement and corruption under Maduro"; it documents rising maternal and infant death, spread of preventable diseases, food insecurity, and child malnutrition. HRW declared that the "combination of severe medicine and food shortages ... with the spread of disease ... amounts to a complex humanitarian emergency that requires a full-scale response by the United Nations secretary-general." The Washington Post states that the report describes a healthcare system that is in "utter collapse", with diseases that are preventable via vaccination spreading, and "dramatic surges" in infectious diseases once eradicated in Venezuela.

The economic crisis in Venezuela started around 2010, and the health crisis followed by two years and significantly worsened in 2017, but the situation in 2019 "is even more dismal than researchers expected". Paul Spiegel, MD, who was the editor and reviewer of the report said, "Venezuela is a middle-income country with a previously strong infrastructure, so just to see this incredible decline ... in such a short period of time is quite astonishing." Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, a doctor in Barquisimeto, Venezuela who is a member of the Venezuelan National Academy of Medicine, told NPR that the report gave an accurate, thorough and timely depiction of the medical situation in his country; he had no affiliation with the report, but said that he had seen cases where there were not even catheters for hooking up children who appeared to have malnutrition for intravenous therapy. Spiegel adds that, because of the infrastructure and trained personnel in Venezuela, aid can be distributed quickly once delivered to Venezuela.

Maduro administration response

On May 16, 2018, President Maduro said that "everything about measles and diphtheria is a lie, we vaccinate the whole community for free" and that "with regards to food, Venezuela has unique policies, which have enabled us to carry on with a program allowing us to maintain levels of food that are necessary for the people." Days later, the undersecretary of health, Indhriana Parada, gave a speech at WHO highlighting the "achievements" of the Venezuelan health system. She said that "in Venezuela there is no humanitarian crisis" and that "Venezuela guarantees access to basic medicines to the most vulnerable groups through distribution policies." In the case of malaria, she said that government measures had "reduced incidence by 50 percent".

---

The Maduro administration does not publish health statistics, but rather it "paint a rosy picture of its health care system". The Guardian reported Maduro's response to the country's health care crisis as "inadequate". "Because of the intransigence of President Nicolás Maduro—who has blamed deprivations on US sanctions and refused to allow anything beyond a trickle of assistance to enter the country"—aid has not been delivered quickly enough. Reuters reported that "Maduro says there is no crisis and no need for humanitarian aid, blaming U.S. sanctions for the country's economic problems." Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza did not respond to a letter asking for Venezuela's "views regarding the extent of the crisis and the policies it was implementing to address it" before the HRW/Johns Hopkins report was published.

The HRW summary of the HRW/Johns Hopkins report said, "The Venezuelan authorities during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro have proven unable to stem the crisis, and have in fact exacerbated it through their efforts to suppress information about the scale and urgency of the problems." The Associated Press said Maduro "suppress information" and has made the problem worse. The Americas director for HRW, José Miguel Vivanco said, "Venezuelan authorities publicly minimise and suppress information about the crisis, and harass and retaliate against those who collect data or speak out about it, while also doing far too little to alleviate it." The report discusses a teaching physician who said "residents are threatened with being expelled from the program or their hospital if they include a malnutrition diagnosis in medical records", causing malnutrition to be understated in Venezuelan data.

The report states that "many analysts have argued that the government's own policies have played a role in causing the economic crisis ... However, under the presidency of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan government has denied the crisis, hidden health statistics and data, harassed health professionals who speak out about the reality on the ground, and made it harder for sufficient humanitarian assistance to reach the Venezuelan people. Through these policies and practices, authorities have contributed to the worsening humanitarian crisis documented in this report." The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty ratified by Venezuela; it commits its parties to "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health", and the right to an adequate "standard of living" and "adequate food". The Constitution of Venezuela provides for the right to health. The HRW/Johns Hopkins report states that, facing deteriorating health conditions, the government's suppression of information and actions against those speaking about the crisis "represent a violation of Venezuela's obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to health" to which Venezuelans are entitled from both the ICESCR treaty and their Constitution.

Following the April HRW/Johns Hopkins report, and amid announcements from the United Nations about the scale of the humanitarian crisis, along with increasing international pressure, Maduro met with the Red Cross, and it announced it would triple its budget for aid to Venezuela. The increased aid would focus in four areas: the migration crisis, the health care system collapse, water and sanitation, and prisons and detention centers. Maduro, for the first time, indicated he was prepared to accept international aid—although denying a humanitarian crisis exists. The Wall Street Journal said that the acceptance of humanitarian shipments by Maduro was his first acknowledgement that Venezuela is "suffering from an economic collapse", and The Guardian reported that Maduro's stance has softened in the face of increasing pressure. Guaidó said the acceptance of humanitarian aid was the "result of our pressure and insistence", and called on Venezuelans to "stay vigilant to make sure incoming aid is not diverted for 'corrupt' purposes".

Infectious and preventable diseases

In 1961, Venezuela was the first country declared free of malaria. In 2009, the WHO reported there were less than 36,000 cases of malaria in Venezuela. In 2013, Venezuela registered a new high in the number of cases of malaria in the past 50 years, and by 2014, was the only country in Latin America where the incidence of malaria was increasing, allegedly in part due to illegal mining; medical shortages in the country hampered treatment. By 2016, Venezuela's malaria-prevention program had collapsed, and there were more than a hundred thousand cases of malaria yearly. In 2017, there were 414,000 confirmed cases of malaria, according to the WHO.

Other preventable diseases that "were rare or nonexistent before the economic crisis, have surged", including diphtheria, measles, and tuberculosis. "Venezuela did not experience a single case of diphtheria between 2006 and 2015"; according to the HRW/Johns Hopkins report, since mid-2016, 1,500 of the 2,500 suspected cases have been confirmed. Between 2008 and 2015, there was one recorded case of measles, in 2012; since June 2017, 6,200 of the 9,300 reported cases have been confirmed. The highest rate of tuberculosis in four decades was reached in 2017. In 2014, there were 6,000 reported cases of tuberculosis; preliminary data shows more than 13,000 for 2017.

In 2014, shortages of antiretroviral medicines to treat HIV/AIDS affected about 50,000 Venezuelans, potentially causing thousands of Venezuelans with HIV to develop AIDS. In 2018, PAHO estimated that 90% of Venezuelans who had HIV and were registered by the government—69,308 of the 79,467 registered—were not receiving antiretroviral treatment. The PAHO report estimated that in six years, new HIV cases grew by 24% through 2016, after which the government stopped providing data. NPR reported: "New HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have increased sharply, in large part because the vast majority of HIV-positive Venezuelans no longer have access to antiretroviral medications." Because of a shortage of HIV test kits, there may be more people who have HIV but are not aware. The HRW/Johns Hopkins report says: "Venezuela is the only country in the world where large numbers of individuals living with HIV have been forced to discontinue their treatment as a result of the lack of availability of antiretroviral (ARV) medicines."

In late 2014, Venezuelans began saying that due to shortages of medicines, it was hard to find acetaminophen to help alleviate symptoms of the newly introduced chikungunya virus, a potentially lethal mosquito-borne disease. In September 2014, the Venezuelan government stated that 400 Venezuelans were infected with chikungunya; the Central University of Venezuela stated that there could be between 65,000 and 117,000 Venezuelans infected. In August 2015 independent health monitors said that there were more than two million people infected with chikungunya while the government said there were 36,000 cases.

COVID-19 pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reached Venezuela in March 2020, costs for services such as internet and telephone lines rose between 80% and 749%, further limiting access to these utilities. Shortages of beds and essential medical equipment, such as latex gloves and antibiotics, have severely limited the capabilities of the country's medical infrastructure.

In April 2020 the Venezuelan government asked the Bank of England to sell $US1.02 billion of the Venezuelan gold reserves held by the bank to help the government fund its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed on 14 May by a legal claim by the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) asking the Bank of England to send the proceeds of the sale of gold to the United Nations Development Programme. The claim stated that the funds would then be used to buy healthcare equipment, medicine, and food to address the country's "COVID-19 emergency". The UK Foreign Office had previously agreed to a request from the Trump administration to block the release of Venezuela's gold. In July 2020, the UK High Court ruled that the gold could not be released to the BCV because the UK government recognised Juan Guaidó as the "constitutional interim president of Venezuela". However, in October 2020, an appeals court overturned the High Court decision and asked the UK Foreign Office to clarify who it recognised as president of Venezuela. The Guardian wrote that the position of the UK government was unclear as it "maintains full consular and diplomatic relations with the Venezuela government".

Women, maternal and infant

In 2016, infant mortality increased 30% in one year, to 11,466 deaths of children under the age of one. By 2019, the UN reported that infant mortality had "soared". "Venezuela is the only South American country where infant mortality has returned to levels last seen in the 1990s", according to the HRW/Johns Hopkins report. Maternal mortality also increased 65% in one year, to 756 deaths.

Abortion is illegal in Venezuela; the director of a large family planning clinic in Venezuela indicated that more women are arranging for permanent sterilization, and that more are presenting with "complications from clandestine abortions". One of the causes, according to the Venezuelan Association for Alternative Sexual Education, is the severe shortage of oral and injectable contraceptives and intrauterine devices.

The HRW/Johns Hopkins report states that the more than 454,000 Venezuelan women who have emigrated to Colombia face 'threats of sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking, and sexual and reproductive rights violations"; violence based on gender accounted for more than 12% of 2018 health-care events, and indigenous women may be at higher risk.

Venezuelan women emigrating are at risk for becoming sex trafficking targets virtually anywhere they flee to. Cases of trafficking in Peru, the United States, Spain, and Colombia display the highest numbers.

Pregnancy and motherhood

Due to lack of medical supplies, food and medical care in Venezuelan hospitals, many pregnant women in Venezuela are crossing the border into neighboring countries to give birth. Lack of basic medicine and equipment is causing preventable deaths and maternity is a very high risk for women, especially since there are no blood banks in the event of excessive bleeding. Hospitals frequently have water and electricity outages and only 7% of emergency services are fully operative. Maternal mortality is estimated to have increased by 65% from 2013 to 2016, and unsafe abortions have contributed to 20% of preventable maternal deaths. According to Amnesty International, causes of the increase in maternal deaths include a lack of medical personnel and supplies like anticoagulants, scar healing cream, painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics, and other tools and equipment.

Statelessness

Cúcuta, a city on the Colombian-Venezuela border, has received 14,000 Venezuelan patients at the Erasmo Meoz University Hospital since 2016 and is expecting to receive even more. In this hospital, 75% of the newborns born in the first two months of the year 2019 were Venezuelans. The situation has strained the budget of these hospitals, putting Erasmo Meoz 14 million dollars into debt. While Colombia is the most impacted since it shares a border, women are also traveling to Brazil to give birth. The number of births of Venezuelan babies attended to in Boa Vista, Brazil, has increased from 700 in 2014 to 50,000 in 2017. Venezuelan mothers have also been fleeing to neighboring Peru and Ecuador. For Colombian citizenship it is required that Colombian citizens be born to at least one Colombian parent or be born to foreign parents who meet residence requirements and are eligible to become citizens. Due to the influx of Venezuelan babies being born in Colombia and the Venezuelan government's inability to issue citizenship, Colombia has introduced a new measure that will give these Colombian-born newborns Colombian citizenship to avoid 'statelessness'. The measure went into effect August 2019 and includes babies of Venezuelan parents born in Colombia starting in January 2015, having given citizenship to approximately 27,000 babies born in Colombia over the past four years.

Mental health

Following the Bolivarian Revolution, the rate of suicide among Venezuelans quadrupled over two decades, with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans dying from suicide during the period according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence. As a result of the crisis, stressors resulting in suicide included economic burden, hunger and loneliness due to the emigration of relatives.

In 2015, concerns about shortages and inflation overtook violent crime as Venezuelans' main worry for the first time in years according to pollster Datanálisis. The chief executive of Datanálisis, Luis Vicente Leon, said that Venezuelans had greater concerns over shortages and became preoccupied with the difficulties surrounding them instead. Eldar Shafir, author and American behavioral scientist, said that the psychological "obsession" with finding scarce goods in Venezuela is because the rarity of the item makes it "precious".

In 2016, reporters from The New York Times visited six psychiatric wards across the Venezuela at the invitation of doctors; all reported shortages of medicine and even food. In the investigation, they reported that El Pampero Hospital had not employed a psychiatrist in two years, and that it only had running water for only a few hours a day. The hospital, the article said, also suffered from shortages of basic personal-care and cleaning supplies, such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste or toilet paper. The nurses declared that without sedatives, they had to restrain patients or lock them in isolation cells to keep them from harming themselves. The reporters also noted that the government had denied that its public hospitals were suffering from shortages, and had refused multiple offers of international medical aid.

Despite the threat of violent protests, the economic crisis affected children more than violence. Abel Saraiba, a psychologist with children's rights organization Cecodap said in 2017, "We have children from a very early age who are having to think about how to survive", with half of her young clients requiring treatment because of the crisis. Children are often forced to stand in food lines or beg with their parents, while the games they play with other children revolve around finding food. Friends of the Child Foundation psychologist Ninoska Zambrano said that children are offering sexual services for food. Zambrano said "Families are doing things that not only lead them to break physically, but in general, socially, we are being morally broken".

In 2017, suicide increased by 67% among the elderly and 18% among minors; by 2018, reports emerged of a rapidly increasing suicide rate due to the stressors surrounding the crisis.

Medical care and elections

Mission Barrio Adentro was a program established by Chávez to bring medical care to poor neighborhoods; it was staffed by Cubans that were sent to Venezuela in exchange for petroleum. The New York Times interviewed sixteen Cuban medical professionals in 2019 who had worked for Barrio Adentro prior to the 2018 Venezuelan presidential elections; all sixteen revealed that they were required to participate in voting fraud. Some of the Cubans said that "command centers" for elections were placed near clinics to facilitate "dispatching doctors to pressure residents". Some tactics reported by the Cubans were unrelated to their profession: they were given counterfeit cards to vote even though they were not eligible voters, they witnessed vote tampering when officials opening ballot boxes and destroyed ballots, and they were told to instruct easily manipulated elderly patients in how to vote.

But they also "described a system of deliberate political manipulation"; their services as medical professionals "were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion", they told The New York Times. Facing a shortage of supplies and medicine, they were instructed to withhold treatment–even for emergencies–so supplies and treatment could be "doled out closer to the election, part of a national strategy to compel patients to vote for the government". They reported that life-saving treatment was denied to patients who supported the opposition. As the election neared, they were sent door-to-door, on house visits with a political purpose: "to hand out medicine and enlist voters for Venezuela's Socialist Party". Patients were warned that they could lose their medical care if they did not vote for the socialist party, and that, if Maduro lost, ties would be broken with Cuba, and Venezuelans would lose all medical care. Patients with chronic conditions, at risk of death if they couldn't get medicine, were a particular focus of these tactics. One said that government officials were posing as doctors to make these house calls before elections; 'We, the doctors, were asked to give our extra robes to people. The fake doctors were even giving out medicines, without knowing what they were or how to use them," he said.

Housing

Since the mid-2000s during Chávez's presidency, Venezuela has had a housing crisis. In 2005, the Venezuelan Construction Chamber (CVC) estimated that there was a shortage of 1.6 million homes, with only 10,000 of 120,000 promised homes constructed by Chávez's government despite billions of dollars in investments. Poor Venezuelans attempted to construct homes on their own despite structural risks.

By 2011, there was a housing shortage of 2 million homes, with nearly twenty prime developments being occupied by squatters following Chávez's call for the poor to occupy "unused land". Up to 2011, only 500,000 homes were constructed during the Chávez administration, with over two-thirds of the new housing developments being built by private companies; his government provided about the same amount of housing as previous administrations. Housing shortages were further exacerbated when private construction halted due to the fear of property expropriations and because of the government's inability to construct and provide housing. Urban theorist and author Mike Davis said in July 2011 to The Guardian, "Despite official rhetoric, the Bolivarianist regime has undertaken no serious redistribution of wealth in the cities and oil revenues pay for too many other programmes and subsidies to leave room for new housing construction." By 2012, a shortage of building materials also disrupted construction, with metal production at a 16-year low. By the end of Chávez's presidency in 2013, the number of Venezuelans in inadequate housing had grown to 3 million.

Under the Maduro government, housing shortages continued to worsen. Maduro announced in 2014 that due to the shortage of steel, abandoned cars and other vehicles would be acquired by the government and melted to provide rebar for housing. In April 2014, Maduro ruled by decree that Venezuelans who owned three or more rental properties would be forced by the government to sell their rental units at a set price or they would face fines or have their property possessed by the government. By 2016, residents of government-provided housing, who were usually supporters of the government, began protesting due to the lack of utilities and food.

Social

Corruption

Corruption is high in Venezuela according to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index and is prevalent at many levels of society. While corruption is difficult to measure reliably, in 2018 Transparency International ranked Venezuela among the top 13 most corrupt countries out of 180 measured, tied with Iraq, but ahead of Afghanistan, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, North Korea, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A 2016 poll found that 73% of Venezuelans believed their police were corrupt. Latinobarómetro's 2018 report said that 65% of Venezuelans believed their president was involved in corruption, and 64% believed that government officials were corrupt. Discontent with corruption was cited by opposition-aligned groups as one of the reasons for the 2014 Venezuelan protests. A once wealthy country, Venezuela's economy was driven into political and economic crisis by corruption and mismanagement.

Crime

Escalating violent crime, especially murder, had been called "perhaps the biggest concern" of Venezuelans during the crisis. Venezuela had "by various measures, the world's highest violent-crime rate" in 2017, and almost none of crimes that were reported were prosecuted. InSight Crime says the crisis has "all too often been obscured by the government's reluctance to release damning crime statistics". The New Yorker reporter found that even stairwells in a public hospital were not safe from robbers, who preyed on staff and patients despite the large number of security forces guarding the hospital, saying this was because the police were assigned to contain journalists who might embarrass the government with exposés on the state of the hospital; they were not assigned to protect its occupants. The police allegedly collaborated with the robbers receiving a cut of what they stole.

According to The U.S. Bureau of Diplomatic Security, street gang violence, "corrupt" underpaid police officers, "an inefficient and politicized judicial system", an extremely troubled prison system, and an increased widespread of weaponry has resulted in the majority of criminal activity in Venezuela, with murder being the crime committed the most. The Bureau states that there were 73 daily violent deaths in 2018, and that the government "often attempts to refute or repudiate reports of increasing crime and murder rates; however, independent observers widely reject" the Venezuelan government's claims. The government says there were 60 daily homicides in 2016, and 45 daily in 2015, corresponding with Venezuela's downward economic spiral; the OVV says the numbers are higher.

For 2015, the government says the rate of homicides was 70.1 per 100,000 people. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV) says the rate was 91.8 homicides per 100,000 people (in 2015, the comparative U.S. number was 4.9 per 100,000 inhabitants). According to the World Bank, the 2016 homicide rate was 56 per 100,000, making Venezuela third in the world, after El Salvador and Honduras. OVV data has 23,047 homicides committed in Venezuela in 2018, a rate of 81.4 per 100,000 people, with the decline being attributed to emigration.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

... carjack gangs set up ambushes, sometimes laying down nail-embedded strips to puncture tires of vehicles ferrying potential quarry. Motorists speak matter-of-factly of spotting body parts along roadways. ... While most crime victims are poor, they also include members of the middle and upper classes and scores of police and military personnel killed each year, sometimes for their weapons. ... "Before the thieves would only rob you," is a common refrain here in the capital. "Now they kill you."

Venezuela led the world in murder rates, with 81 per 100,000 people killed in 2018; the third most violent country.

As a response to the high rate of crime, the Venezuelan government banned private ownership of firearms by some individuals in 2012. El País reported in 2014 that Chávez had years earlier assigned colectivos to be "the armed wing of the Bolivarian Revolution" for the Venezuelan government, giving them weapons, communication systems, motorcycles and surveillance equipment to exercise control in the hills of Caracas where police are forbidden entry. In 2006, they received arms and funding from the state when they were brought under the government's community councils. Chávez eliminated the Metropolitan Police in 2011, turning security over to the colectivos in some Caracas barrios. Some weapons given to the groups include assault rifles, submachine guns and grenades. Despite the Venezuelan government's statements saying that only official authorities can carry weapons for the defense of Venezuela, colectivos are armed with automatic rifles such as AK-47s, submachine guns, fragmentation grenades, and tear gas.

During the 2014 Venezuelan protests against Maduro, colectivos acted against the opposition protesters. As the crisis intensified, armed gangs have taken control of cities. The Civil Association for Citizen Control said that more than half of those killed during the protests were killed by colectivos. Human Rights Watch described colectivos as "armed gangs who use violence with impunity" to harass political opponents of the Venezuelan government. Amnesty International calls them "armed pro-government supporters who are tolerated or supported by the authorities". During the 2019 Venezuelan blackouts in March, Maduro called on the armed paramilitary gangs, saying, "The time has come for active resistance". As blackouts continued, on 31 March, citizens protested the lack of electricity and water in Caracas and other cities; Maduro called again on the colectivos, asking them "to defend the peace of every barrio, of every block". Videos circulated on social media showing colectivos threatening protesters and shooting in the streets; two protestors were shot.

There is no reliable data on kidnapping in Venezuela and available data is considered an underestimate; it is against the law to pay ransom, and according to criminologists, at least 80% of kidnappings are not reported for fear of retaliation, or because relatives prefer to negotiate, hoping the hostage will be released and fearing they will be killed if authorities are contacted. Available data underestimates the amount of express kidnapping, where victims are typically released in less than two days after relatives pay a quick ransom. Most express kidnapping victims are released, but in 2016, 18 were killed. At least 80% of kidnappings occur in a limited area around Caracas and including Miranda State. In the areas where most kidnappings occur, the government set up so-called "peace zones" where official police withdrew and gangs took over; "experts say the government has armed these groups ... ... control large territories, financed through extortion and the drug trade".

Illegal mining creates pools of standing water that encourage mosquito breeding, a partial cause of the increase in malaria seen in Venezuela.

The murder rate in Venezuela had also decreased significantly between 2017 and 2019. In 2018, Venezuela's murder rate–described as the highest in the world–had begun to decrease to 81.4 per 100,000 people according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), with the organization stating that this downward trend was due to the millions of Venezuelans that emigrated from the country at the time. The murder rate declined even further to 60.3 in 2019.

Human rights

Repression and politically motivated detentions have risen to record levels in 2019. Foro Penal states that Venezuela has at least 900 political prisoners as of April 2019, with more arrests of people being held longer in poor conditions and on dubious charges. The human rights organization has documented more than 50 instances that include "sexual abuse, strangulation using plastic bags and the use of razor blades to cut detainees' feet". In the first three months of 2019, Foro Penal says 1,712 people were arrested and about two-thirds of those were held for more than 48 hours, the threshold used to classify a detainee as a political prisoner. Maduro calls those arrested members of "terrorist groups" and says his government will not hesitate to send them to prison. Juan Requesens and Roberto Marrero are examples of "purely political" arrests, according to their attorney. Increasingly high numbers of the detainees are working-class people, who have been driven to protest by the crisis.

The final published report addressed the extrajudicial executions, torture, forced disappearances and other human rights violations reportedly committed by Venezuelan security forces in the recent years. Bachelet expressed her concerns for the "shockingly high" number of extrajudicial killings and urged for the dissolution of the FAES. According to the report, 1,569 cases of executions as consequence as a result of "resistance to authority" were registered by the Venezuelan authorities from 1 January to 19 March. Other 52 deaths that occurred during 2019 protests were attributed to colectivos. The report also details how the Venezuelan government "aimed at neutralising, repressing and criminalising political opponents and people critical of the government" since 2016.

On 16 September 2020, the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela accused the Maduro government of crimes against humanity.

On 15 February 2024, the Maduro government closed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office in Caracas after High Commissioner Volker Türk condemned the detention of activist Rocío San Miguel, demanding "her immediate release and respect for her right to legal defense". Maduro's government expelled its officials, giving them 72 hours to leave the country.

Emigration

The exodus of millions of desperate impoverished Venezuelans to surrounding countries has been called "a risk for the entire region". Millions of Venezuelan people have voluntarily emigrated from Venezuela during the Chávez and Maduro presidencies. The crisis started during the Chávez presidency, but became much more pronounced during Maduro's term. Emigration has been motivated by economic collapse, expansion of state control over the economy, high crime, high inflation, general uncertainty, a lack of hope for a change in government, a failing public sector, and "shortages of basic necessities". The PGA Group estimates more than 1.5 million Venezuelans emigrated in the 15 years between 1999 and 2014; an estimated 1.8 million left in ten years through 2015.

The UN said that in the first part of 2018, about 5,000 Venezuelans were leaving Venezuela daily. A February 2019 UN reported estimated that 3.4 million Venezuelans have emigrated, and they expect another 1.9 million may emigrate in 2019. The UN estimates 2.7 million have gone to the Caribbean and Latin America. Most have gone to Colombia; estimates of Venezuelans emigrating to Colombia are 1.1 million, Peru 506,000, Chile 288,000, Ecuador 221,000, Argentina 130,000, and Brazil 96,000. This is in contrast to Venezuela's high immigration rate during the 20th century. Kevin Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador in Colombia, says, "Colombians, in their tens and hundreds of thousands, migrated to Venezuela in the '60s and '70s and '80s, when Venezuela was a wealthy country and Colombia was not so much. Now, more than 1 million Venezuelans, many of them since 2015, have gone to live in Colombia."

Those who leave by foot are known as los caminantes (the walkers); the walk to Bogotá, Colombia is 560 kilometres (350 mi), and some walk hundreds of kilometres further, to Ecuador or Peru. Alba Pereira, who helps feed and clothe about 800 walkers daily in Northern Colombia, said in 2019 she is seeing more sick, elderly and pregnant among the walkers. The Colombian Red Cross has set up rest tents with food and water on the side of the roads for Venezuelans. Venezuelans also cross into northern Brazil, where UNHCR has set up 10 shelters to house thousands of Venezuelans. Images of Venezuelans fleeing the country by sea have raised symbolic comparisons to the images seen from the Cuban diaspora.

In 1998, only 14 Venezuelans were granted U.S. asylum, and by September 1999, 1,086 Venezuelans were granted asylum according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The first wave of Venezuelan emigrants were wealthy and middle class Venezuelans concerned by Chávez's rhetoric of redistributing wealth to the poor; the early exodus of college-educated people with capital caused a brain drain.

Emigration especially increased during the Maduro presidency. This second wave of emigration consisted of lower class Venezuelans suffering directly from the economic crisis facing the country; thus, the same individuals whom Chávez attempted to aid were now seeking to emigrate, driven by worsening economic conditions, scarcity of food and medicine, and rising rates of violent crime. Tomás Pérez, who studies the Venezuelan diaspora at the Central University of Venezuela, said in 2018 that because "now everyone is poor", it is mostly poor leaving the country. Carlos Malamud, from a Spanish think tank, said Maduro is "using migration as a political weapon against the opposition". The scale of the crisis has surpassed in four years the Cuban exodus, in which 1.7 million emigrated over a period of sixty years; Malamud says "Latin American societies aren't prepared for such wide-scale arrivals".

Impacting the health care crisis in Venezuela, health care professionals are emigrating; a primary factor driving emigration to Colombia is the lack of "medicines, supplies, health providers, and basic health services" in Venezuela. Since 2017, the banking sector has seen 18,000 employees leave the country.

Economic

Maduro's government stopped releasing social and economic indicators, so most data rely on estimates. The Institute of International Finance (IIF) stated in March 2019 that "Venezuela's economic collapse is among the world's worst in recent history". A chief economist of the IIF said the crisis resulted from "policy decisions, economic mismanagement, and political turmoil", saying it is on a scale that "one would only expect from extreme natural disasters or military confrontations". The April 2019 International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook described Venezuela as being in a "wartime economy". For the fifth consecutive year, Bloomberg rated Venezuela last on its misery index in 2019. The government's main source of income is oil, with output "plummeting due to lack of investment, poor maintenance and neglect", from which consultant Eduardo Fortuny expects will take 12 years to recover.

As of 2020 the Venezuelan government has liberalized many socialist or redistributive economic policies—price and currency controls, stringent labor laws—and brought a rapprochement with members of the local business community—especially Lorenzo Mendoza of the iconic Empresas Polar conglomerate (who is no longer denounced as a "thief," a "parasite" and a "traitor"), in exchange for an abandonment of political opposition by Mendoza. However, a "slight recovery" in economic activity in January 2020 reportedly "evaporated in February and March" due to "the fall in global oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic".

Business and industry

A number of foreign firms have left the nation—often due to quarrels with the socialist government—including Smurfit Kappa, Clorox, Kimberly Clark and General Mills; the departures aggravate unemployment and shortages. Before the effects of the 2019 Venezuelan blackouts, the number of multinational companies in the industrial city of Valencia in Carabobo State had dropped from 5,000 when Chávez became president to a tenth of that.

Airline industry

Domestic airlines are having difficulties because of hyperinflation and parts shortages, and most international airlines have left the country. Airlines from many countries ceased operating in Venezuela, making travel to the country difficult: Air Canada became the first international airline to cease Venezuela operations in March 2014 and was followed by Alitalia in April 2015.

Other airlines that have left are Aeroméxico, Avianca, Delta, Lufthansa, LATAM, and United Airlines. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the government of Venezuela has not paid US$3.8 billion to international airlines in an issue involving conversion of local currency to U.S. dollars. Airlines have left for other reasons, including crime against flight crews and foreign passengers, stolen baggage, and problems with the quality of jet fuel and maintenance of runways. Aerolíneas Argentinas left in 2017, citing security reasons, and American Airlines, the last U.S. airline serving Venezuela, left on 15 March 2019, after its pilots refused to fly to Venezuela, citing safety issues. Currently, the only North American airline flying to Venezuela is Sunwing Airlines, with seasonal service to Margarita Island and Punto Fijo.

Following the increasing economic partnership between Venezuela and Turkey in October 2016, Turkish Airlines started offering direct flights from December 2016 connecting between Caracas to Istanbul (via Havana, Cuba) in an effort to "link and expand contacts" between the two countries.

Iranian airline Mahan Air (blacklisted by the U.S. government since 2011) began direct flights to Caracas in April 2019, "signifying a growing relationship between the two nations" according to Fox News.

In May 2019, the United States Department of Transport and Department of Homeland Security suspended all flights between Venezuela and the United States, due to safety and security concerns. The suspension affects mainly Venezuelan airlines flying to Miami, which are Avior Airlines, LASER Airlines and Estelar Latinoamérica.

Gross domestic product

Estimated to drop by 25% in 2019, the IMF said the contraction in Venezuela's GDP—the largest since the Libyan Civil War began in 2014—was affecting all of Latin America.

In 2015 the Venezuelan economy contracted 5.7% and in 2016 it contracted 18.6% according to the Venezuelan central bank; after that, the government stopped producing data. Ecoanalítica, a Venezuelan consultant, told The Wall Street Journal that output had halved between 2016 and 2019. The IMF and AGPV Asesores Económicos, a consulting firm based in Caracas, estimate that GDP shrunk to $80 billion in 2018 from $196 billion in 2013, making the economy smaller than Guatemala's or Ethiopia's.

Inflation

The annual inflation rate for consumer prices has risen hundreds of thousands of percent during the crisis. Inflation in Venezuela remained high during Chávez's presidency. By 2010, inflation removed any advancement of wage increases, and by 2014 at 69% it was the highest in the world. In November 2016, Venezuela entered a period of hyperinflation, with inflation reaching 4,000% in 2017; the Venezuelan government "essentially stopped" producing inflation estimates in early 2018. At the end of 2018, inflation had reached 1.35 million percent.

In the 2017 Christmas season, some shops stopped using price tags since prices would inflate so quickly. From 2017 to 2019, some Venezuelans became video game gold farmers and could be seen playing games such as RuneScape to sell in-game currency or characters for real currency; players could make more money than salaried workers by earning only a few dollars per day. Some of these "gold farmers" will use cryptocurrencies as an intermediary currency before converting into Bolivares, as indicated in this interview.

In October 2018, the IMF estimated that inflation would reach 10,000,000% by the end of 2019.

In early 2019, the monthly minimum salary was the equivalent of US$5.50 (18,000 sovereign bolivars)—less than the price of a Happy Meal at McDonald's. Ecoanalitica estimated that prices jumped by 465% in the first two-and-a-half months of 2019. The Wall Street Journal stated in March 2019 that the "main cause of hyperinflation is the central bank printing money to increase money supply, thus boosting domestic spending.", reporting that a teacher can buy a dozen eggs and two pounds of cheese with a month's wages.

In May 2019, the Central Bank of Venezuela released economic data for the first time since 2015. According to the release, Venezuela's inflation rate was 274% in 2016, 863% in 2017 and 130,060% in 2018. The new reports imply a contraction of more than half of the economy in five years, according to the Financial Times "one of the biggest contractions in Latin American history". Sources quoted by Reuters, said that China may have asked Venezuela to release the data to bring Venezuela into compliance with the IMF and make it more difficult for the IMF to recognise Juan Guaidó during the presidential crisis. The IMF said it was not able to assess the quality of the data as it had no contact with the Venezuelan government.

Shortages

Shortages in Venezuela became prevalent after price controls were enacted according to the economic policy of the Hugo Chávez government. Under the economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro government, greater shortages occurred due to the Venezuelan government's policy of withholding United States dollars from importers with price controls. Some Venezuelans must search for food—occasionally resorting to eating wild fruit or garbage—wait in lines for hours and sometimes settle without having certain products.

Unemployment

world's highest unemployment since end of Bosnian War in world's biggest contraction since 2014 start of Libyan Civil War

In January 2016 the unemployment rate was 18.1 percent and the economy was the worst in the world according to the misery index. Venezuela has not reported official unemployment figures since April 2016, when the rate was at 7.3 percent.

Unemployment was forecasted to reach 44% for 2019; the IMF stated that this was the highest unemployment seen since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995.

Venezuelan debt

In August 2017 President of the United States Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuela which banned transactions involving Venezuela's state debt including debt restructuring. The technical default period ended 13 November 2017 and Venezuela did not pay coupons on its dollar eurobonds, causing a cross-default on other dollar bonds. A committee consisting of the fifteen largest banks admitted default on state debt obligations which in turn entailed payments on CDS on 30 November.

In November 2017, The Economist estimated Venezuela's debt at US$105 billion and its reserves at US$10 billion. In 2018, Venezuela's debt grew to US$156 billion and as of March 2019, its reserves had dropped to US$8 billion.

With the exception of PDVSA's 2020 bonds, as of January 2019, all of Venezuela's bonds are in default, and Venezuela's government and state-owned companies owe nearly US$8 billion in unpaid interest and principal. As of March 2019, the government and state-owned companies have US$150 billion in debt.

Oil industry

By 2018 the political and economic troubles facing Venezuela had engulfed the El Tigre-San Tomé region, a key region for oil production in eastern Venezuela. Oil workers were fleeing the state-owned oil company as salaries could not keep up with hyperinflation, reducing families to starvation. Workers and criminals stripped vital oil industry equipment of anything valuable, ranging from pickup trucks to the copper wire within critical oil production components. Oil facilities were neglected and unprotected, crippling oil production and leading to environmental damage. As noted petroleum historian, expert, and former San Tomé resident Emma Brossard stated in 2005, "Venezuelan oil fields had a depletion rate of 25 per cent annually there had to be an investment of US$3.4 billion a year to keep up its production." "But since Chávez has become president there has been no investment."

As of 2020 there were no longer any oil rigs searching for oil in Venezuela, and production has been "reduced to a trickle". Oil exports are expected to total $2.3 billion for 2020, continuing a decline of more than a decade. Pollution from crude oil leaking from abandoned underwater wells and pipelines has caused serious damage to fishing and human health.

In 2022, rising oil prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine led the World Oil Commission to start meetings with the Venezuelan Government to push oil production to have a control over the price. As a consequence of the energy crisis caused by the war, the United States allowed the American oil and gas company Chevron to resume limited operations in Venezuela again.

Public opinion

A November 2016 Datincorp survey that asked Venezuelans living in urban areas which entity was responsible for the crisis, 59% blamed chavismo or the presidents (Chávez, 25%; Maduro 19%; Chavismo 15%) while others blamed the opposition (10%), entrepreneurs (4%) and the United States (2%).

A September 2018 Meganálisis survey found that 85% of Venezuelans wanted Maduro to leave power immediately. A November 2018 Datanálisis poll found that 54% of Venezuelans opposed a foreign military intervention to remove Maduro, while 35% supported an intervention. Instead, 63% supported a "negotiated settlement to remove Maduro".

An 11–14 March 2019 survey of 1,100 people in 16 Venezuelan states and 32 cities by Meganálisis found that 89% of respondents wanted Maduro to leave the presidency. A Datanálisis poll on 4 March 2019 found Maduro's approval rating at an all-time low of 14%.

According to Datanálisis, in early 2019, 63% of Venezuelans believed that a change of government was possible. Fourteen months later, in May 2020, after the Macuto Bay raid, the percentage decreased to 20%.

According to economists interviewed by The New York Times, the situation is by far the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history, and is also the worst facing a country in peace time since the mid-20th century. The crisis is also more severe than that of the United States during the Great Depression, the 1985–1994 Brazilian economic crisis, or the 2008–2009 hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. Other writers have also compared aspects of the crisis, such as unemployment and GDP contraction, to that of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, and those in Russia, Cuba and Albania following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Reaction

Economic sanctions

The European Union, the Lima Group, the United States and other countries have applied individual sanctions against government officials and members of both the military and security forces as a response to human rights violations, corruption, degradation in the rule of law and repression of democracy. The United States would later extend its sanctions to the petroleum sector.

Economists have stated that shortages and high inflation in Venezuela began before US sanctions were directed towards the country. The Wall Street Journal said that economists place the blame for Venezuela's economy shrinking by half on "Maduro's policies, including widespread nationalizations, out-of-control spending that sparked inflation, price controls that led to shortages, and widespread graft and mismanagement." The Venezuelan government has stated that the United States is responsible for its economic collapse. The HRW/Johns Hopkins report noted that most sanctions are "limited to canceling visas and freezing assets of key officials implicated in abuses and corruption. They in no way target the Venezuelan economy." The report also stated that the 2017 ban on dealing in Venezuelan government stocks and bonds allows exceptions for food and medicine, and that the 28 January 2019 PDVSA sanctions could worsen the situation, although "the crisis precedes them". The Washington Post stated that "the deprivation long predates recently imposed US sanctions".

In 2011, the United States sanctioned Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. According to executives within the company as well as the Venezuelan government, the sanctions were mostly symbolic and had little effect (if any) on Venezuela's trade with the US since the company's sale of oil to the US and the operations of its US-based subsidiary Citgo were unaffected. On 9 March 2015, Barack Obama signed and issued an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat and ordered sanctions against Venezuelan officials. The sanctions did not affect Venezuela's oil company and trade relations with the US continued. In 2017, Trump's administration imposed additional economic sanctions on Venezuela. In 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented that "information gathered indicates that the socioeconomic crisis had been unfolding for several years prior to the imposition of these sanctions".

According to The Wall Street Journal, new 2019 sanctions, aimed at depriving the Maduro government of petroleum revenues. In 2019, former UN rapporteur Alfred de Zayas said that US sanctions on Venezuela were illegal as they constituted economic warfare and "could amount to 'crimes against humanity' under international law". His report, which he says was ignored by the UN, was criticized by the Latin America and Caribbean programme director for the Crisis Group for neglecting to mention the impact of a "difficult business environment on the country", which the director said "was a symptom of Chavismo and the socialist governments' failures", and that "Venezuela could not recover under current government policies even if the sanctions were lifted." Michelle Bachelet updated the situation in a 20 March oral report following the visit of a five-person delegation to Venezuela, saying that the social and economic crisis was dramatically deteriorating, the government had not acknowledged or addressed the extent of the crisis, and she was concerned that although the "pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions", the sanctions could worsen the situation.

In February 2019, Jorge Arreaza, Maduro's Minister for Foreign Affairs, said he was forming a coalition of diplomats who "believe the U.S. and others are violating the U.N. charter against non-interference in member states". During the announcement, he was surrounded by diplomats from 16 other countries, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Arreaza said the cost to the Venezuelan economy of the US blockade was over $30 billion. Reporting on Arreaza's statements, the Associated Press said that Maduro was blocking aid, and "saying that Venezuelans are not beggars and that the move is part of a U.S.-led coup".

During the COVID-19 pandemic, world leaders called for a suspension of economic sanctions, including against Venezuela and Iran, that have "increasingly become the pursuit of war by other means". The US responded by intensifying the sanctions against Venezuela.

An October 2020 report published by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) by Venezuelan economist Luis Oliveros found that "while Venezuela's economic crisis began before the first U.S. sectoral sanctions were imposed in 2017, these measures 'directly contributed to its deep decline, and to the further deterioration of the quality of life of Venezuelans' ". The report concluded that economic sanctions "have cost Venezuela's government as much as $31 billion since 2017"

Alena Douhan, United Nations special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures, was due to visit Venezuela in August 2020 to investigate the impact of international sanctions. Before her visit, 66 Venezuelan NGOs (including PROVEA) asked Douhan in an open letter to consider the harmful impact of sanctions in the context of years of repression, corruption and economic mismanagement that predate the sanctions, and requested she meet independent press and civil society researchers. She arrived on 31 January, and was welcomed on arrival by a government minister and the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN. She declared on her preliminary findings as she left on 12 February: that sanctions against Venezuela have had a "devastating" noticeable impact in both the economy and the population. She said "the increasing number of unilateral sanctions imposed by United States, the European Union and other countries have exacerbated the economic and humanitarian calamities in Venezuela" but that Venezuela's economic decline "began in 2014 with the fall in oil prices" and that "mismanagement and corruption had also contributed." The government welcomed the report, while the opposition accused her of "playing into the hands of the regime" of Maduro. Douhan was harshly criticized by the Venezuelan civil society, and several non-governmental organizations pronounced themselves in social media with the hashtag "#Lacrisisfueprimero" (The crisis came first).

Foreign involvement

On 11 August 2017, President Trump said that he is "not going to rule out a military option" to confront the autocratic government of Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in Venezuela. Military Times said the unnamed aides told Trump it was not wise to even discuss a military solution due to the long history of unpopular intervention in Latin America by the United States. Venezuela's Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino criticized Trump for the statement, calling it "an act of supreme extremism" and "an act of madness". The Venezuelan communications minister, Ernesto Villegas, said Trump's words amounted to "an unprecedented threat to national sovereignty".

Representatives of the United States were in contact with dissident Venezuelan military officers during 2017 and 2018 but declined to collaborate with them or provide assistance to them. The opinion of other Latin American nations was split with respect to military intervention. Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, while visiting Colombia, did not rule out the potential benefit of the use of military force to intervene with the crisis. Canada, Colombia and Guyana, which are members of the Lima Group, refused to sign the organization's document rejecting military intervention in Venezuela.

During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, allegations of potential United States military involvement began to circulate, with military intervention in Venezuela was already being executed by the governments of Cuba and Russia. According to professor Erick Langer of Georgetown University, while it was being discussed whether the United States would militarily intervene, "Cuba and Russia have already intervened". Hundreds or thousands of Cuban security forces have allegedly been operating in Venezuela while professor Robert Ellis of United States Army War College described the between several dozen and 400 Wagner Group mercenaries provided by Russia as the "palace guard of Nicolás Maduro". Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the deployment of Russian mercenaries, calling it "fake news". On 2 April 2019, the Russian Foreign Ministry rejected Trump's call to "get out" saying their 100 military servicemen now in Venezuela will support Maduro "for as long as needed".

Humanitarian aid

Throughout the crisis, humanitarian aid was provided to Venezuelans in need both within Venezuela and abroad. In October 2018, the USNS Comfort departed for an eleven-week operation in Latin America, with a primary mission being to assist countries who received Venezuelan refugees who fled the crisis in Venezuela. The main goal was to relieve health systems in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and other nations which faced the arrival of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.

At the end of January 2019, as the US prepared to bring aid across the border, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned the United States about the risk of delivering humanitarian aid without the approval of the government's security forces. The UN similarly warned the US about politicising the crisis and using aid as a pawn in the power struggle. Other humanitarian organisations also raised risks.

On 23 February 2019, 14 trucks carrying 280 tons of humanitarian aid attempted to bring aid across the Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Paula Santander bridges from Colombia. There were clashes, with Venezuelan security forces reported to use tear gas attack in attempt to maintain a blockade of the border. Colombia said around 285 people were injured and at least two trucks set on fire. CNN reported that the Venezuela government accused Guaidó supporters of burning the trucks and noted that "While a CNN team saw incendiary devices from police on the Venezuelan side of the border ignite the trucks, the network's journalists are unsure if the trucks were burned on purpose." In March, The New York Times reported that footage showed that it was anti-Maduro protestors rather than Venezuelan security forces who were responsible for the burning trucks. The New York Times reported that the trucks had been set on fire by anti-Maduro protester who threw a Molotov cocktail that hit one of the trucks. Colombian foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo rejected the claims by The New York Times that the Colombian government manipulated the video of the burning of the aid truck, insisting that Nicolás Maduro was responsible. Responding when asked about the claims in a BBC interview, Juan Guaidó stressed that its findings suggested only a possible theory, that it was the newspaper's point of view and that a total of three trucks were burned, while the footage focused on one. Journalist Karla Salcedo Flores denounced state-run Telesur for plagiarism and the manipulation of her photos for propaganda purposes after the network claimed protesters poured gasoline on the trucks. Agence France-Presse published an investigation disproving Telesur's claims with the photos. Bellingcat reported that since the open source evidence examined for its investigation does not show the moment of ignition, it is not possible to make a definitive determination regarding the cause of the fire.

Franceso Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, announced on 29 March 2019 that the Red Cross was preparing to bring humanitarian aid to the country to help ease both the chronic hunger and the medical crisis. The Guardian reported that Maduro had "long denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis, and on 23 February blocked an effort led by Guaidó to bring aid into the country", and that the Red Cross had "brokered a deal" between the Maduro and Guaidó administrations "indicating a seldom-seen middle ground between the two men".

The Red Cross aid shipments were expected to begin within a few weeks, and the first shipment would help about 650,000 people; simultaneously, a leaked UN report estimated that seven million Venezuelans were likely in need of humanitarian assistance. During what The Wall Street Journal called "Latin America's worst humanitarian crisis ever", the "operation would rival Red Cross relief efforts in war-torn Syria, signaling the depth of Venezuela's crisis." Rocca said the efforts would focus first on hospitals, including state-run facilities, and said the Red Cross was open to the possibility of delivering aid products stored on the Venezuelan borders with Colombia and Brazil. He warned that the Red Cross would not accept any political interference, and said the effort must be "independent, neutral, impartial and unhindered".

Maduro and Arreaza met with representative of Red Cross International on 9 April to discuss the aid effort. The Wall Street Journal said that the acceptance of humanitarian shipments by Maduro was his first acknowledgement that Venezuela is "suffering from an economic collapse", adding that "until a few days ago, the government maintained there was no crisis and it didn't need outside help". Guaidó said the acceptance of humanitarian aid was the "result of our pressure and insistence", and called on Venezuelans to "stay vigilant to make sure incoming aid is not diverted for 'corrupt' purposes".

The first Red Cross delivery of supplies for hospitals arrived on 16 April, offering an encouraging sign that the Maduro administration would allow more aid to enter. Quoting Tamara Taraciuk—an expert at Human Rights Watch on Venezuela—who called the situation "a completely man-made crisis", The New York Times said the aid effort in Venezuela presented challenges regarding how to deliver aid in an "unprecedented political, economic and humanitarian crisis" that was "caused largely by the policies of a government intent on staying in power, rather than war or natural disaster". Armed pro-government paramilitaries fired weapons to disrupt the first Red Cross delivery, and officials associated with Maduro's party told the Red Cross to leave.

An April 2021 report by the inspector general at United States Agency for International Development found that the Trump administration had politicized the early 2019 humanitarian aid package and was motivated by regime change in Venezuela more so than ameliorating the humanitarian situation there.

See also

• Fuel shortages in Venezuela
• Guaire miners
• Pemon conflict - a theatre of the Venezuelan crisis

Notes

1. Venezuela's Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI) found nearly 75% of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg (19.4 lb) in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition.
2. Javier Corrales says in Foreign Policy, "... excessive dependence on commodity exports can distort an economy in fundamental ways. One manifestation of this principle is what has come to be known as 'Dutch Disease' (named after the problems faced by the Netherlands as it reaped a windfall from North Sea oil in the 1970s). Dutch Disease occurs when a country that is excessively dependent on commodity exports experiences a price boom. The sudden inflow of foreign currency raises the demand for local currency, yielding an uncompetitive exchange rate. This overvalued exchange rate, if unaddressed, can kill the country's other exports as well as stimulating an avalanche of imports, which can hurt domestic producers."
3. Sources reporting on claims of the National Assembly being the "only democratically elected" or "only legitimate" political body in Venezuela include: Financial Times, the BBC, Economic Times, CTV, Reuters agency, CBC, etc.
4. On unchecked power of the executive: Human Rights Watch 2018 report, Human Rights Watch 2017 report, Amnesty International, and Amnesty International on opposition.
5. Venezuela's Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI) found nearly 75% of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg (19.4 lb) in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition.
6. Article 83: Health is a fundamental social right and the responsibility of the State, which shall guarantee it as part of the right to life. The State shall promote and develop policies oriented toward improving the quality of life, common welfare and access to services. All persons have the right to protection of health, as well as the duty to participate actively in the furtherance and protection of the same, and to comply with such health and hygiene measures as may be established by law, and in accordance with international conventions and treaties signed and ratified by the Republic.
7. Illegal mining creates pools of standing water that encourage mosquito breeding, a partial cause of the increase in malaria seen in Venezuela.

References

1. ^ "Chávez declara 'guerra económica' a burguesía en Venezuela". El Universo (in Spanish). 2 June 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2018.
2. Ellsworth, Brian (14 February 2012). "Insight: Post-election hangover looms for Venezuela economy". Reuters. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
3. "One in three Venezuelans not getting enough to eat, UN finds". The Guardian. 24 February 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
4. ^ Larmer, Brook (1 November 2018). "What 52,000 Percent Inflation Can Do to a Country". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
5. ^ Kurmanaev, Anatoly (17 May 2019). "Venezuela's Collapse Is the Worst Outside of War in Decades, Economists Say". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 May 2019. Venezuela's fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say. ... economists say, the poor governance, corruption and misguided policies of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have fueled runaway inflation, shuttered businesses and brought the country to its knees. ... most independent economists say the recession began years before the sanctions, ...
6. ^ Biller, David and Patricia Laya (9 April 2019). "Venezuela unemployment nears that of war-ruined Bosnia, IMF says". Bloomberg. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
7. ^ * Krauze, Enrique (8 March 2018). "Hell of a Fiesta". New York Review of Books. 65 (4). Retrieved 23 April 2018.
   • Goodman, Joshua and Luis Alonso Lugo (19 April 2018). "US officials: 16 nations agree to track Venezuela corruption". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 19 April 2018. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
8. ^ * Mariana Zuñiga and Anthony Faiola. "Even sex is in crisis in Venezuela, where contraceptives are growing scarce".
   • Friedman, Uri (4 June 2017). "How Populism Helped Wreck Venezuela". The Atlantic.
9. ^ Larmer, Brook (1 November 2018). "What 52,000 Percent Inflation Can Do to a Country". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
10. ^ "Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela declara "crisis humanitaria de salud" por escasez de medicamentos" [Venezuela's National Assembly declares "humanitarian health crisis" due to medicine shortage] (in Spanish). BBC. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
11. ^ * "Delcy Rodríguez: No existe crisis humanitaria en Venezuela". El Nacional (in Spanish). 31 August 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
    • "Maduro niega la diáspora venezolana en la ONU: Se ha fabricado por distintas vías una crisis migratoria - LaPatilla.com". LaPatilla.com (in European Spanish). 26 September 2018. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
12. ^ "Venezuela blackout, in 2nd day, threatens food supplies and patient lives". The New York Times. 8 March 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2019. The Maduro administration has been responsible for grossly mismanaging the economy and plunging the country into a deep humanitarian crisis in which many people lack food and medical care. He has also attempted to crush the opposition by jailing or exiling critics, and using lethal force against antigovernment protesters.
13. ^ "Venezuela Forces Killed Thousands, Then Covered It Up, U.N. Says." New York Times. 5 July 2019.
14. ^ Sibery, Brian Loughman, Richard A. (2012). Bribery and corruption : navigating the global risks. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. ISBN 978-1118011362.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
15. ^ "Venezuela deve continuar como economia mais miseravel do mundo". economia.uol.com.br. 4 February 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
16. ^ *"EU extends Venezuela sanctions over democracy, rights violations". Reuters. 6 November 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
    • "Grupo de Lima prohibirá entrada a sus países a miembros del Gobierno de Maduro". El Comercio (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 February 2021.
    • "Swiss impose sanctions on seven senior Venezuelan officials". Reuters. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2019. Also at Diario Las Americas.
    • "Canada imposes sanctions on key Venezuelan officials". CBC Canada. Thomson Reuters. 22 September 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
    • "Qué significa que EE.UU. considere a Venezuela 'una amenaza para la seguridad nacional'". BBC Mundo. 10 March 2015. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
    • Lane, Sylvan; Rafael Bernal (26 July 2017). "Treasury sanctions target Venezuela president's allies". The Hill. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
    • Sullivan, Andy; Lisa Lambert (15 February 2019). "U.S. sanctions five Venezuelans, ratcheting up pressure on Maduro". Reuters. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
17. "Venezuela 2016 inflation hits 800 percent, GDP shrinks 19 percent: document". Reuters. 20 January 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
18. Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "The human cost of the US sanctions on Venezuela | DW | 01.10.2019". DW.COM. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
19. Melimopoulos, Elizabeth (21 January 2019). "Venezuela in crisis: How did the country get here?". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
20. Toro, Francisco (21 August 2018). "No, Venezuela doesn't prove anything about socialism". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 June 2019. Since the turn of the century, every big country in South America except Colombia has elected a socialist president at some point. Socialists have taken power in South America's largest economy (Brazil), in its poorest (Bolivia) and in its most capitalist (Chile). Socialists have led South America's most stable country (Uruguay) as well as its most unstable (Ecuador). Argentina and Peru elected leftists who, for various reasons, didn't refer to themselves as socialists – but certainly governed as such. Mysteriously, the supposedly automatic link between socialism and the zombie apocalypse skipped all of them. Not content with merely not-collapsing, a number of these countries have thrived.
21. "Socialismo de Maduro ha convertido a Venezuela en un estado de pobreza y desesperación: Trump". El Financiero. 5 February 2019. Retrieved 4 June 2019.
22. López Maya, Margarita (14 December 2018). "Populism, 21st-century socialism and corruption in Venezuela". Thesis Eleven. 149: 67–83. doi:10.1177/0725513618818727. S2CID 150327831.
23. Rabouin, Dion (19 May 2018). "Here's why you can't blame socialism for Venezuela's crisis". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved 4 June 2019. Socialism can result in diverse outcomes that range from the economy of Norway to that of Venezuela, and socialist leaders who vary as widely as Bolivia's Evo Morales and France's former President François Hollande . . . Venezuela's problems stem from corruption and egregious mismanagement, which can happen anywhere. Countries with socialist regimes such as China, Vietnam, Chile and many in Europe have managed to successfully grow their economies as Venezuela's has tumbled.
24. Cusack, Asa. "Is socialism to blame for Venezuela's never-ending crisis?". Aljazeera. Archived from the original on 6 October 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
25. Faiola, Anthony. "In socialist Venezuela, a crisis of faith not in just their leader but their economic model". The Washington Post. No. 11 February 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
26. Di Martino, Daniel (21 March 2019). "How Socialism Destroyed Venezuela". Economics21. Archived from the original on 17 April 2019. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
27. Oliveros, Asdrúbal; Arcay, Guillermo; Leidenz, Jean-Paul (10 January 2018). "Hiperinflaciones socialistas". Prodavinci (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 January 2018. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
28. Heritage, Andrew (December 2002). Financial Times World Desk Reference. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 618–621. ISBN 9780789488053.
29. Wilpert, Gregory Wilpert (2007). Changing Venezuela By Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government. Verso. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-84467-552-4.
30. "A Populist Paradox". Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. 1 November 2010. Retrieved 31 August 2018. Chavez won the election despite multiple signs that some of his populist policies, including redistributive land reform and price setting, were harming average Venezuelans.
31. Murphy, Robert P. (6 May 2017). "The Venezuelan Crisis Is Due to Economic Ignorance". The Independent Institute. Retrieved 31 August 2018. As awful as the Venezuelan crisis is, it is not surprising. Indeed, the pattern we see there is a predictable outcome of 'populist' policies that ignore the basic laws of economics.
32. Corrales, Javier (7 May 2015). "Don't Blame It On the Oil". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
33. Corrales, Javier (7 March 2013). "The House That Chavez Built". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
34. "Venezuela's Expensive Friendships". Stratfor. 2 January 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
35. Min-woo, Nam (2 May 2018). "Hwapyegyeongje muneojyeossneunde... choejeoimgeum insang-e mogmaeneun Benesuella" 화폐경제 무너졌는데…최저임금 인상에 목매는 베네수엘라 [The economy collapsed... Venezuela clamors for minimum wage hike]. The Chosun Ilbo (in Korean). Retrieved 22 May 2018. Venezuela's fall is considered to be mainly caused by the populist policy ... Venezuela, for decades, has increased the number of public sector employees and has promoted populist support to maintain the regime.
36. Kurmanaev, Anatoly (17 May 2019). "Venezuela's Collapse Is the Worst Outside of War in Decades, Economists Say". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 May 2019. Venezuela's fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say. ... economists say, the poor governance, corruption and misguided policies of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have fueled runaway inflation, shuttered businesses and brought the country to its knees. ... most independent economists say the recession began years before the sanctions, ...
37. *Corrales, Javier (7 March 2013). "The House That Chavez Built". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
    • Benzaquen, Mercy (16 July 2017). "How Food in Venezuela Went From Subsidized to Scarce". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
    • "The Venezuelan refugee crisis: Challenges and solutions" (PDF). Brookings Institution. 13 April 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
    • "Venezuela: ¿tropezando con la misma piedra?" (PDF). Ecoanalítica (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 March 2019.
    • "Proyección del documental "El pueblo soy yo. Venezuela en populismo"". Prensa Libre (in Spanish). 18 March 2019. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
38. ^ "Venezuela: 75% of population lost 19 pounds amid crisis". UPI. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
39. Caraballo-Arias, Yohama; Madrid, Jesús; Barrios, Marcial (25 September 2018). "Working in Venezuela: How the Crisis has Affected the Labor Conditions". Annals of Global Health. 84 (3): 512–522. doi:10.29024/aogh.2325. ISSN 2214-9996. PMC 6748246. PMID 30835391.
40. Nichols, Michelle (29 March 2019). "Venezuelans facing 'unprecedented challenges,' many need aid - internal U.N. report". Reuters. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
41. ^ "Venezuelan migrant exodus hits 3 million: U.N." Reuters. 8 November 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
42. ^ "Venezuela situation". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 12 January 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
43. ^ Wyss, Jim (13 August 2019). "A nation is vanishing: Has Venezuela lost almost 20 percent of its population?". The Miami Herald. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
44. ^ "UNODC: Intentional Homicide Victims". United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Retrieved 20 February 2019.
45. ^ "Venezuela's timid gains in taming inflation fade as food prices soar". Reuters. 11 May 2020.
46. "More dollars and fewer protests in Venezuela". The Economist. 18 December 2019. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
47. ^ "Maduro says 'thank God' for dollarization in Venezuela". Reuters. 17 November 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
48. ^ "Encovi 2021: Venezuela Is The Poorest Country in Latin America". Caracas Chronicles. 30 September 2021. Archived from the original on 30 September 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
49. Frangie-Mawad, Tony (19 January 2023). "Venezuela's Modest Economic Liberalization Has Created a 'Hellscape of Inequality'". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
50. Volume 57 / Social Sciences. Government and Politics: Venezuela - René Salgado
51. ^ "Estrategia de Cooperación de OPS/OMS con Venezuela 2006–2008" (PDF) (in Spanish). Pan American Health Organization. June 2006. pp. p. 54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2006. Retrieved 31 December 2006.
52. ^ "Fact Sheet. Social Missions in Venezuela" (PDF). Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United States. 12 November 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 June 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
53. ^
    • Barreiro C., Raquel (4 March 2006). "Mercal es 34% más barato" (in Spanish). El Universal. Retrieved 29 December 2006.
    • "Venezuela's economy: Medieval policies". The Economist. 20 August 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
54. Heritage, Andrew (December 2002). Financial Times World Desk Reference. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 618–21. ISBN 9780789488053.
55. Corrales, Javier; Penfold, Michael (2 April 2015). Dragon in the Tropics: The Legacy of Hugo Chávez. Brookings Institution Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0815725930.
56. "Press release N° 20/10, IACHR publishes report on Venezuela". Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Press release). Organization of American States. 24 February 2010. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
57. Alonso, Juan Francisco (24 February 2010). "IACHR requests the Venezuelan government to guarantee all human rights". El Universal. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
58. Schimizzi, Carrie (24 February 2010). "Venezuela government violating basic human rights: report". Jurist: Legal news and research. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
59. ^ Charlie Devereux & Raymond Colitt. 7 March 2013. "Venezuelans' Quality of Life Improved in UN Index Under Chavez". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 7 March 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
60. Meade, Teresa. A History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present (Oxford 2010), p. 313.
61. Min-woo, Nam (2 May 2018). "Hwapyegyeongje muneojyeossneunde... choejeoimgeum insang-e mogmaeneun Benesuella" 화폐경제 무너졌는데…최저임금 인상에 목매는 베네수엘라 [The economy collapsed... Venezuela clamors for minimum wage hike]. The Chosun Ilbo (in Korean). Retrieved 22 May 2018. Venezuela's fall is considered to be mainly caused by the populist policy ... Venezuela, for decades, has increased the number of public sector employees and has promoted populist support to maintain the regime.
62. ^ Sibery, Brian Loughman, Richard A. (2012). Bribery and corruption : navigating the global risks. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. ISBN 978-1118011362.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
63. ^ "Venezuela deve continuar como economia mais miseravel do mundo". economia.uol.com.br. 4 February 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
64. ^ Corrales, Javier (7 March 2013). "The House That Chavez Built". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
65. Corrales, Javier; Romero, Carlos (2013). U.S.-Venezuela relations since the 1990s : coping with mid-level security threats. New York: Routledge. pp. 79–81. ISBN 978-0415895248.
66. ^ Siegel, Robert (25 December 2014). "For Venezuela, Drop In Global Oil Prices Could Be Catastrophic". NPR. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
67. ^ Scharfenberg, Ewald (1 February 2015). "Volver a ser pobre en Venezuela". El Pais. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
68. • Gallagher, J. J. (25 March 2015). "Venezuela: Does an increase in poverty signal threat to government?". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
    • Corrales, Javier (7 May 2015). "Don't Blame It On the Oil". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
69. • "Las principales causas de la escasez en Venezuela". Banca & Negocios. 27 March 2014. Archived from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
    • "El ascenso de la escasez". El Universal. 13 February 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
    • "¿Por qué faltan dólares en Venezuela?". El Nacional. 8 October 2013. Archived from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
70. • Cristóbal Nagel, Juan (4 June 2014). "Poverty Shoots Up in Venezuela". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
    • "2014 Panorama Social de América Latina" (PDF). United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. United Nations. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
71. "Venezuela's economy: Medieval policies". The Economist. 20 August 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
72. "Post-Chavez, Venezuela Enters a Downward Spiral". Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 4 April 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
73. Corrales, Javier (2015). "Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela". Journal of Democracy. 26 (2): 37–51. doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0031. S2CID 153641967.
74. "Venezuela's April inflation jumps to 5.7 percent: report". Reuters. 17 May 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
75. ^ Ferdman, Roberto A. (26 March 2014). "Venezuela's black market rate for US dollars just jumped by almost 40%". Quartz. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
76. ^ "Venezuela's currency: The not-so-strong bolívar". The Economist. 11 February 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
77. ^ Voigt, Kevin (6 March 2013). "Chavez leaves Venezuelan economy more equal, less stable". CNN. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
78. * "Mr. Maduro in His Labyrinth". The New York Times. The New York Times. 26 January 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
    • "Venezuela's government seizes electronic goods shops". BBC. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
    • "Maduro anuncia que el martes arranca nueva "ofensiva económica"". La Patilla. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
    • "Maduro insiste con una nueva "ofensiva económica"". La Nacion. 23 April 2014. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
    • Castillo, Mariano; Hernandez, Osmary (20 November 2013). "Decree powers widen Venezuelan president's economic war". CNN. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
    • Yapur, Nicolle (24 April 2014). "Primera ofensiva económica trajo más inflación y escasez". El Nacional. Archived from the original on 24 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
79. Gupta, Girish (3 November 2014). "Could Low Oil Prices End Venezuela's Revolution?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
    • "New Year's Wishes for Venezuela". Bloomberg. The Washington Post. 2 January 2015. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
80. Pons, Corina; Cawthorne, Andrew (30 December 2014). "Recession-hit Venezuela vows New Year reforms, foes scoff". Reuters.
81. ^ Pons, Corina (20 January 2017). "Venezuela 2016 inflation hits 800 percent, GDP shrinks 19 percent". Reuters. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
82. Cristóbal Nagel, Juan (13 July 2015). "Looking Into the Black Box of Venezuela's Economy". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
83. "Ban Ki-moon: "En Venezuela hay una crisis humanitaria"" [Ban Ki-moon: "There is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela".]. La Nación (in Spanish). 10 August 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2022. Estoy muy preocupado por la situación actual, en la que las necesidades básicas no pueden ser cubiertas, como la comida, el agua, la sanidad, la ropa, no están disponibles. Eso crea una crisis humanitaria en Venezuela -dijo el secretario general-.
84. ^ "Maduro niega la diáspora venezolana en la ONU: Se ha fabricado por distintas vías una crisis migratoria - LaPatilla.com". LaPatilla.com (in European Spanish). 26 September 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2019.* Charner, Flora (15 October 2016). "The face of hunger in Venezuela". CNN. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
    • Vyas, Kejal and Ryan Dube (6 April 2018). "Venezuelans Die as Maduro Government Refuses Medical Aid". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
    • Glüsing, Jens (8 August 2018). "The Country of Hunger: A State of Deep Suffering in Venezuela's Hospitals". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
85. ^ Dube, Ryan (29 March 2019). "Red Cross announces Venezuelan aid effort". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones Institutional News – via ProQuest. Also available online.
86. "More dollars and fewer protests in Venezuela". The Economist. 18 December 2019. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 27 December 2019. Most Western and Latin American countries recognise Mr Guaidó's claim
87. * Corrales, Javier (7 March 2013). "The House That Chavez Built". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
    • Benzaquen, Mercy (16 July 2017). "How Food in Venezuela Went From Subsidized to Scarce". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
    • "The Venezuelan refugee crisis: Challenges and solutions" (PDF). Brookings Institution. 13 April 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
    • "Venezuela: ¿tropezando con la misma piedra?" (PDF). Ecoanalítica (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 March 2019.
    • "Proyección del documental "El pueblo soy yo. Venezuela en populismo"". Prensa Libre (in Spanish). 18 March 2019. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
88. ^ Casey, Nicholas; Torres, Patricia (30 March 2017). "Venezuela Muzzles Legislature, Moving Closer to One-Man Rule". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved 31 March 2017.
89. "Venezuela's Lame-Duck Congress Names New Supreme Court Justices". Bloomberg. 23 December 2015. Retrieved 31 March 2017.
90. "Venezuela's Maduro begins second term". BBC News. 10 January 2019. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
91. Romo, Rafael (30 March 2017). "Venezuela's high court dissolves National Assembly". CNN. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
92. Long, Gideon (13 January 2019). "Venezuela's opposition vows to help end Maduro's rule". Financial Times. Retrieved 15 January 2019. ... the National Assembly is the only democratically elected institution left in the country ...
93. "Venezuela crisis: Guaido rejects talks with Maduro". 26 January 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
94. "Russia, China block US push for UN to back Venezuela's Juan Guaidó". Economic Times. Archived from the original on 1 February 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
95. "Freeland says Venezuela's Maduro regime is now fully entrenched as a dictatorship". CTV. 10 January 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
96. "Reuters: US pushes UN Security Council to back Venezuela's Guaidó". Kyiv Post. 26 January 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
97. "Singh calls on Trudeau to part ways with US, Brazil on Venezuela crisis". CBC News. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
98. "Venezuela: Events of 2018". Human Rights Watch. 20 December 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2019. No independent government institutions remain today in Venezuela to act as a check on executive power. A series of measures by the Maduro and Chávez governments stacked the courts with judges who make no pretense of independence. The government has been repressing dissent through often-violent crackdowns on street protests, jailing opponents, and prosecuting civilians in military courts. It has also stripped power from the opposition-led legislature. ...In 2017, President Maduro convened a 'Constituent Assembly' by presidential decree, despite a constitutional requirement that a public referendum be held before any effort to rewrite the Constitution. The assembly is made up exclusively of government supporters chosen through an election that Smartmatic, a British company hired by the government to verify the results, called fraudulent. The Constituent Assembly has, in practice, replaced the opposition-led National Assembly as the country's legislative branch.
99. "Venezuela: Events of 2017". Human Rights Watch. 5 January 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2019. The Venezuelan government has jailed political opponents and disqualified them from running for office. At time of writing, more than 340 political prisoners were languishing in Venezuelan prisons or intelligence services headquarters, according to the Penal Forum, a Venezuelan network of pro-bono criminal defense lawyers. ...In mid-2017, the Supreme Court sentenced five opposition mayors, after summary proceedings that violated international norms of due process, to 15 months in prison and disqualified them from running for office.
100. "Venezuela 2017–2018". Amnesty International. Retrieved 4 February 2019. The judicial system continued to be used to silence dissidents, including using military jurisdiction to prosecute civilians. The justice system continued to be subject to government interference, especially in cases involving people critical of the government or those who were considered to be acting against the interests of the authorities. The Bolivarian National Intelligence Service continued to ignore court decisions to transfer and release people in its custody.
101. "Wave of arrests as government turns against elected opposition". Amnesty International. 11 August 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2019. The arrest of four officials from the opposition in Venezuela, the removal from office of a further 11 and the issuing of arrest warrants against another five, demonstrates the Maduro administration's tightening stranglehold on any form of dissent, taking repression to a frightening new level, said Amnesty International.
102. * Lugo-Galicia, Hernan and Ayatola Nuneza (20 April 2017). "El país grito: "Maduro, no te queremos"". El Nacional (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 26 March 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
     • "El corresponsal de SEMANA en Caracas relata cómo la madre de todas las marchas que convocó la oposición venezolana, terminó como se esperaba con represión con violencia. Análisis del duro panorama en el vecino país". Semana. 20 April 2017. Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
     • "Noticias de América - Día de violencia en las marchas a favor y en contra de Maduro". Radio France Internationale (in European Spanish). 20 April 2017. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
103. ^ "Venezuela's embattled socialist president calls for citizens congress, new constitution". USA Today. Associated Press. 1 May 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
104. "¿Qué busca Nicolás Maduro con el nuevo autogolpe que quiere imponer en Venezuela?" [What is Maduro seeking with the new self-coup that he tries to impose in Venezuela?]. La Nación (in Spanish). 2 May 2017. Archived from the original on 11 January 2018. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
105. Cascione, Silvio (5 August 2017). "Mercosur suspends Venezuela, urges immediate transition". Reuters.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
106. "La lista de los 40 países democráticos que hasta el momento desconocieron la Asamblea Constituyente de Venezuela". Infobae (in Spanish). 31 July 2017. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
107. "Venezuela: New assembly leader warns 'justice will come'". 4 August 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
     "As Venezuela unrest spreads, Maduro presses on with plans to rewrite charter". Reuters. 24 May 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
     "Venezuelan gov't proposes constitutional assembly election on July 30". EFE. 4 June 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
     "40 countries protest Venezuela's new assembly amid fraud accusations". Retrieved 4 August 2017.
108. "Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the situation in Venezuela - Consilium". consilium.europa.eu. High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
109. Devereux, Charlie (21 July 2017). "Venezuela Urged by Mercosur to Refrain From Escalating Tensions". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
110. "Almagro, 13 OAS Nations Demand Maduro Suspend Constitutional Assembly". Latin American Herald Tribune. 26 July 2017. Archived from the original on 30 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
111. "Venezuela opposition boycotts meeting on Maduro assembly, clashes rage". Reuters. 8 April 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
112. Mogollon, Mery and Chris Kraul (29 July 2017). "As Venezuelan election nears, more upheaval and cries of fraud". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
     • "What are Venezuelans voting for and why is it so divisive?". BBC News. 30 July 2017. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
     • Bronstein, Hugh (29 July 2017). "Venezuelan opposition promises new tactics after Sunday's vote". Reuters India. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
113. Hanna, Jason and Nicole Chavez (4 August 2017). "Venezuela: New assembly leader warns 'justice will come'". CNN. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
114. Goodman, Joshua and Fabiola Sanchez (8 August 2017). "New Venezuela assembly declares itself superior government branch". Chicago Tribune. Associated Press. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
115. "Venezuela opposition weighs election run". BBC News. 8 February 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
116. • "ANC aprobó un decreto para la validación de los partidos políticos". El Nacional. 20 December 2017.
     • Olmo (@BBCgolmo), Guillermo D. (10 January 2019). "Por qué es polémico que Maduro jure como presidente de Venezuela y por qué lo hace ahora si las elecciones fueron en mayo". BBC News Mundo. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
     • "Maduro gana con la abstención histórica más alta en comicios presidenciales - Efecto Cocuyo". efectococuyo.com. Archived from the original on 21 December 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
     • "Venezuela opposition banned from running in 2018 election". BBC News. 11 December 2017.
117. Sen, Ashish Kumar (18 May 2018). "Venezuela's Sham Election". Atlantic Council. Archived from the original on 18 November 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
118. • Corrales, Javier. "Venezuela's Odd Transition to Dictatorship". Americas Quarterly. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
     • Brodzinsky, Sibylla (21 October 2016). "Venezuelans warn of 'dictatorship' after officials block bid to recall Maduro". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
     • "Almagro: Maduro se transforma en dictador por negarles a venezolanos derecho a decidir su futuro". CNN en Español. 24 August 2016. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
119. "Venezuela Swears in an illegitimate President". Financial Times. 10 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
120. • Herrero, Ana Vanessa; Specia, Megan (10 January 2019). "Venezuela Is in Crisis. So How Did Maduro Secure a Second Term?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
     • "Peru, Paraguay recall diplomats over Maduro inauguration". Aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
121. "Asamblea Nacional arranca proceso para Ley de Transicion". Archived from the original on 9 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
122. Smith, Scott (10 January 2019). "Isolation greets Maduro's new term as Venezuela's president". AP News. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
123. Sa Pessoa, Gabriela; Garcia Cano, Regina (15 August 2024). "Venezuela's opposition faces setback after countries suggest repeat of presidential election". Associated Press. Retrieved 16 August 2024.
124. ^ Kurmanaev, Anatoly (6 August 2024). "Venezuela's Strongman Was Confident of Victory. Then Came the Shock". New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 August 2024. Retrieved 8 August 2024.
125. Buitrago, Deisy; Nava, Mariela (18 August 2024). "Venezuelan opposition protests as election dispute drags on". Reuters. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
126. "Líder da oposição nas pesquisas, María Corina Machado é inabilitada por 15 anos na Venezuela". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 30 June 2023. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
127. "Venezuela's Supreme Court disqualifies opposition leader from running for president". 27 January 2024. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
128. Rogero, Tiago (6 August 2024). "Evidence shows Venezuela's election was stolen – but will Maduro budge?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 August 2024. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
129. Kurmanaev, Anatoly; Singer, Ethan (31 July 2024). "Election Results Presented by Venezuela's Opposition Suggest Maduro Lost Decisively". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2 August 2024. Retrieved 2 August 2024. The Times analysis shows that the election tallies provided by the researchers are not compatible with a victory by Mr. Maduro, by any margin.
130. Wells, Ione (2 August 2024). "Overwhelming evidence Venezuela opposition won election - Blinken". BBC News. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
131. "Informe del Departamento para la Cooperación y Observación Electoral (DECO) de la Secretaría para el Fortalecimiento de la Democracia de la OEA sobre la elección presidencial de Venezuela para el Secretario General Luis Almagro" [Report of the Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) of the Secretariat for the Strengthening of Democracy of the OAS on the presidential election of Venezuela for the Secretary General Luis Almagro] (PDF) (in Spanish). Organization of American States. 30 July 2024. Wikidata d:Q128129159. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2024. Retrieved 10 August 2024.
132. "Venezuela: International organizations condemn the high levels of violence and repression and demand that the authorities guarantee the right to protest and full respect for the rights to life, personal integrity and freedom" (Press release). Amnesty International. 1 August 2024. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
133. Phillips, Tom (14 August 2024). "Nicolás Maduro's refusal to quit raises a troubling question for Venezuela: what next?". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
134. ^ "Venezuela's top court ratifies Maduro election win as government tightens control". Reuters. 22 August 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
135. "Venezuela's Supreme Court certifies Maduro's claims that he won presidential election". Associated Press. 22 August 2024. Retrieved 23 August 2024. Its decision, read Thursday in an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response to a request by Maduro to review vote totals showing he had won by more than 1 million votes.
136. Tovar, Javier; Agelvis, Barbara (15 August 2024). "Brazil, Colombia urge new Venezuela vote, as opposition cries foul". Agence France-Presse. Yahoo News. Retrieved 16 August 2024.
137. ^ Buschschlüter, Vanessa (1 August 2024). "Maduro manoeuvring to stay in power in Venezuela". BBC. Archived from the original on 1 August 2024. Retrieved 1 August 2024. Mr Maduro has turned to Venezuela's top court ... But instead of making the tallies public, he took the unusual step of filing a 'writ of amparo' - a legal move normally used by citizens who think their constitutional rights have been violated. He asked the top court to audit the voting tallies with a view to confirming the results provided by the CNE which handed him another six-year term in power. ... However, this move has already been dismissed by independent bodies, including the Carter Center.
138. Turkewitz, Julie; Glatsky, Genevieve (22 August 2024). "Venezuela's Supreme Court, Loyal to Maduro, Rules Him Election Winner". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 August 2024. The decision surprised few Venezuelans, as the court has long been used to rubber-stamp the policies of Mr. Maduro, who is likely to use this ruling to strengthen his claim to the presidency.
139. Vyas, Kejal (22 August 2023). "Maduro's Hand-Picked Supreme Court Calls Him Venezuela's Election Winner". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 23 August 2024. The court's ruling was expected, as it is stacked with loyalists to Maduro's ruling Socialist Party.
140. ^ Pérez, Santiago (25 March 2019). "Venezuela's economic collapse explained in nine charts; Venezuela's decline is now deeper than that of the Soviet Union after its breakup, and comparable only to Zimbabwe's in the late 1990s, economists say". The Wall Street Journal – via ProQuest.
141. ^ Nichols, Michelle (29 March 2019). "Venezuelans facing 'unprecedented challenges,' many need aid - internal U.N. report". Reuters. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
142. ^ "Venezuela's humanitarian emergency: Large-scale UN response needed to address health and food crises". Human Rights Watch. 4 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019. Also available in Spanish.
143. ^ "Venezuela military controls food as nation goes hungry". aljazeera.com. 1 January 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
144. ^ "The devolution of state power: The 'Colectivos'". Insight Crime. 18 May 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2019. Also available in Spanish.
145. Sheridan, Mary Beth and Mariana Zuñiga (14 March 2019). "Maduro's muscle: Motorcycle gangs known as 'colectivos' are the enforcers for Venezuela's authoritarian leader". Sun Sentinel. The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
146. ^
     • Sanchez, Fabiola (8 June 2016). "As hunger mounts, Venezuelans turn to trash for food". Associated Press. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
     • "Why are Venezuelans posting pictures of empty shelves?". BBC. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
     • Cawthorne, Andrew (21 January 2015). "In shortages-hit Venezuela, lining up becomes a profession". Reuters. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
     • MacDonald, Elizabeth (26 May 2016). "Exclusive: Harrowing Video Shows Staenezuelans Eating Garbage, Looting". Fox Business. Archived from the original on 7 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
     • "Mangoes fill the gaps in Venezuela's food crisis". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Reuters. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
147. ^ Ocando, Gustavo (10 February 2017). "Hungry Venezuelans killing flamingos and anteaters for food, biologists say". Miami Herald. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
148. ^ "Venezuela: UN should lead full-scale emergency response". Human Rights Watch. 4 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
149. Kohut, Meridith and Isayen Herrera (17 December 2017). "As Venezuela collapses, children are dying of hunger". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
150. ^ Sequera, Vivian (21 February 2018). "Venezuelans report big weight losses in 2017 as hunger hits". Reuters. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
151. Landaeta-Jiménez, Maritza; et al. (February 2018). "Encuesta Nacional de Condiciones de Vida, Venezuela 2017, Alimentación I" [Annual Survey of Living Conditions, Venezuela 2017, Food 1] (PDF). Universidad Catolica Andres Bello (in Spanish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
152. ^ Hernández, Arelis R. and Mariana Zuñiga (4 April 2019). "'Why are you crying, Mami?' In Venezuela, the search for water is a daily struggle". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
153. Ellsworth, Brian and Vivian Sequera (11 March 2019). "Desperate Venezuelans swarm sewage drains in search of water". Reuters. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
154. "In pictures: Seeking water amid power cut". BBC. 13 March 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
155. "Ciudadanos se bañan en alcantarillas por falta de luz y agua en Lara" [Citizens bathe in sewers due to lack of light and water in Lara]. El Nacional (in Spanish). 10 March 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
156. Caraballo-Arias, Yohama; Madrid, Jesús; Barrios, Marcial (25 September 2018). "Working in Venezuela: How the Crisis has Affected the Labor Conditions". Annals of Global Health. 84 (3): 512–522. doi:10.29024/aogh.2325. ISSN 2214-9996. PMC 6748246. PMID 30835391.
157. "UNODC: Intentional Homicide Victims". United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Retrieved 20 February 2019.
158. "More dollars and fewer protests in Venezuela". The Economist. 18 December 2019. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
159. "Data | The World Bank". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
160. ^ "Venezuela's medical crisis requires world's attention". The Boston Globe. 28 April 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
161. ^ Wilson, Peter (27 April 2015). "The Collapse of Chávezcare". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
162. ^ Bajak, Frank (6 November 2013). "Doctors say Venezuela's health care in collapse". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 14 March 2018. Doctors not allied with the government say many patients began dying from easily treatable illnesses when Venezuela's downward economic slide accelerated after Chavez's death from cancer in March. Doctors say it's impossible to know how many have died, and the government doesn't keep such numbers, just as it hasn't published health statistics since 2010.
163. "Médicos del Hospital Universitario de Caracas suspenden cirugías por falta de insumos". Globovision. 21 February 2014. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
164. ^ Beaumont, Peter (27 February 2019). "Infant mortality in Venezuela has soared during crisis, UN says". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
165. ^ Hider, James (5 August 2015). "Thousands dying early as medical system implodes in Venezuela". The Times. UK. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
166. "In deteriorating Venezuela, a kid's scraped knee can be life or death". NBC News. 5 October 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
167. "Venezuela's Broken Health System". DocFilm. 2 March 2019. Deutsche Welle TV. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
168. "Politics this week". The Economist. 11 May 2017.
169. "Politics this week". The Economist. 11 May 2017. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
170. "Nicolás Maduro destituyó a la ministra de Salud que publicó las cifras sobre los aumentos en mortalidad infantil y materna en Venezuela". Infobae. 11 May 2017. Retrieved 13 May 2017.
171. ^ Hodal, Kate (5 April 2019). "UN urged to declare full-scale crisis in Venezuela as health system 'collapses'". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
172. ^ Schreiber, Melody (5 April 2019). "Researchers are surprised by the magnitude of Venezuela's health crisis". NPR. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
173. "U.S. to pay for thousands of doses of HIV drugs for Venezuelan..." Reuters. 29 August 2019. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
174. ^ DeYoung, Karen (4 April 2019). "Venezuela's health system in 'utter collapse' as infectious diseases spread, report says". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 April 2019. Also available at The Independent
175. Moloney, Anastasia (4 April 2019). "U.N. urged to scale up aid as Venezuela crisis deepens". Reuters. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
176. Lugo, Luis Alonso (4 April 2019). "Report: Full-scale UN response needed in Venezuela". AP News. Retrieved 7 April 2019. Also available at The Globe and Mail
177. "Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela". Human Rights Library. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
178. ^ Beaumont, Peter (12 April 2019). "Red Cross aid to Venezuela to triple as Maduro stance softens". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
179. "Maduro says Venezuela ready to receive international aid". Al Jazeera. 10 April 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
180. ^ Torchia, Christopher. (29 March 2019). "Red Cross ready to aid Venezuela, warns against politics". The Washington Post. Associated Press – via ProQuest. Also available online.
181. ^ Finnegan, William (14 November 2016). "Venezuela, a failing state". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
182. Pardo, Daniel (23 August 2014). "The malaria mines of Venezuela". BBC. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
183. "Venezuela Faces Health Crisis Amid Shortage of HIV/Aids Medication". Fox News Latino. 14 May 2014. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
184. Forero, Juan (22 September 2014). "Venezuela Seeks to Quell Fears of Disease Outbreak". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
185. Lobo-Guerrero, Catalina (19 September 2014). "Venezuela's Maduro denounces "psychological war" waged by opposition". El Pais. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
186. Wade, Lizzie (23 September 2014). "In Venezuela, doctor flees after being accused of terrorism amid fever outbreak". Science. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
187. Pons, Corina (19 March 2020). "Cash-strapped Venezuela hikes public service fees amid coronavirus outbreak". Reuters. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
188. "'Mask, gown, gloves – none of that exists': Venezuela's coronavirus crisis". The Guardian. 17 March 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
189. ^ "Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
190. "Venezuela files claim for the Bank of England to hand over $1.5bn of its gold". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Reuters. 21 May 2020. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
191. ^ Wintour, Patrick (5 October 2020). "UK court overturns ruling on $1.8bn of Venezuelan gold". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
192. ^ Ulmer, Alexandra (9 May 2017). "Infant mortality and malaria soar in Venezuela, according to government data". Reuters. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
193. ^ Rojas, Ymaru (5 April 2019). "La crisis humanitaria dispara los abortos clandestinos en Venezuela" [The humanitarian crisis triggers clandestine abortions in Venezuela]. ABC Spain (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 April 2019.
194. "No strangers at the gate Collective Responsibility and a Region's Response to the Venezuelan Refugee and Migration Crisis" (PDF). Retrieved 5 December 2019.
195. "Many Pregnant Women Are Among Those Leaving Venezuela". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
196. ^ "As Venezuela's Healthcare Collapses, Pregnant Women, Girls Bear Brunt of Crisis". Reuters. 8 July 2019.
197. ^ "As Venezuela's Health System Crumbles, Pregnant Women Flee to Colombia". PopConnect (blog). Thomson Reuters Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 December 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
198. "Fleeing the Country to Give Birth: The Exodus of Pregnant Venezuelan Women". Amnesty International. 6 May 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
199. ^ "One Risky Birth Shows How Venezuela's Refugees Are Straining Neighboring Countries". Bloomberg. 3 April 2019.
200. ^ "Venezuelan Mothers-to-Be Head to Brazil to Give Birth". Reuters. 22 August 2018.
201. Rawlins, Carlos Garcia. "Venezuelan Mothers, Children in Tow, Rush to Migrate". The Wider Image. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
202. "Venezuelan Voices—A Spiraling Regional Crisis Hits Ecuador". ReliefWeb. 18 September 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
203. "Colombia Gives Venezuela Newborns a Start in Life". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
204. ^ Orozco, Jennifer (9 May 2019). "Crisis incrementa tasa de suicidios". La Prensa de Lara (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
205. Pardo, Daniel (27 May 2015). "Why Venezuelans worry more about food than crime". BBC News. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
206. Kohut, Meridith; Casey, Nicholas (1 October 2016). "Inside Venezuela's Crumbling Mental Hospitals". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
207. Ulmer, Alexandra (5 October 2017). "Enforque—La agitación política y la escasez pasan factura psicológica a los niños de Venezuela". Reuters (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
208. "Sexo por comida: las niñas venezolanas que se prostituyen para saciar el hambre | El Cooperante". El Cooperante (in European Spanish). 1 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
209. "Suicides Surge in a Hopeless Venezuela". Bloomberg. 24 October 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
210. ^ "'It is unspeakable': How Maduro used Cuban doctors to coerce Venezuela voters". The New York Times. 17 March 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
211. ^ Romero, Simon; María Eugenia Díaz (1 March 2011). "CARACAS JOURNAL; In Venezuela Housing Crisis, Squatters Find 45-Story Walkup". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
212. ^ Morales, Magdalena (15 November 2005). "Venezuelan housing shortage a headache for Chavez". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
213. ^ "Venezuela's housing crisis". Reuters. 3 June 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
214. Lopez, Virginia (20 July 2011). "Tallest squat in the world becomes emblem of Venezuela housing crisis". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
215. ^ Baral, Susimita (6 May 2014). "Abandoned Cars To Solve Venezuela's Housing Crisis?". Latin Times. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
216. Gallegos, Raul (2 April 2014). "In Venezuela, Sell Your House or Lose It". Bloomberg View. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
217. Gibbs, Stephen (21 May 2016). "In Venezuela's housing projects, even loyalists have had enough". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
218. "Corruption perceptions index 2018". Transparency International. 29 January 2019. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
219. "Aumenta percepción de corrupción en América Latina y el Caribe: Transparencia Internacional" (in Spanish). Reuters. 9 October 2017. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
220. "Informe Latinobarómetro 2018". Latinobarómetro. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
221. Tinoco, Cesar (30 November 2018). "Venezuela y Latinobarómetro 2018" (in Spanish). El Nacional. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
222. Martinez, Jessica (20 February 2014). "Venezuelans in US march against their country's violent, corrupt government". Christian Post. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
223. "The crisis in Venezuela was years in the making. Here's how it happened". The New York Times. 23 January 2019 – via ProQuest. Venezuela once had Latin America's richest economy, buoyed by oil reserves larger even than Saudi Arabia's and Iran's. Yet under Mr. Maduro and his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, Venezuela's economy spiraled into mismanagement, corruption and backbreaking debt ... After he inherited a collapsing economy, Mr. Maduro granted the military control of lucrative industries and printed money to dole out patronage — worsening the crisis, but retaining power. Also available online.
224. "Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia". Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia (OVV). Archived from the original on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
225. Rueda, Manuel (8 January 2014). "How did Venezuela become so violent?". Fusion TV. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
226. ^ "Global study on homicide" (PDF). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
227. ^ "Global study on homicide" (PDF). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
228. "Global homicide rates drop, but nearly 500,000 murdered in 2012". Yahoo. Agence France-Presse. 10 December 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
229. Manetto, Francesco (7 June 2018). "Los venezolanos creen vivir en el país más peligroso del mundo" [Venezuelans believe they live in the most dangerous country in the world] (in Spanish). El País. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
230. ^ Bargent, James (30 September 2016). "Reports of kidnapping in Venezuela nearly double in 2016". InSight Crime. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
231. ^ "Venezuela 2018 Crime & Safety Report". Overseas Security Advisory Council, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State. 2 April 2018. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
232. ^ Sesin, Carmen (18 May 2017). "Venezuela's escalating violence seen in killing of Carolina Herrera's nephew". NBC News. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
233. ^ "Venezuela murder rate dips, partly due to migration: monitoring group". Reuters. 27 December 2018.
234. McDonnell, Patrick J (6 June 2016). "The biggest worry in crisis-ridden Venezuela: crime". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
235. "Venezuela bans private gun owners". BBC News. 1 June 2012. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
236. "Venezuela le declara la guerra a las armas". BBC News Mundo (in Spanish). 30 May 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
237. Primera, Maye (1 June 2012). "Venezuela prohíbe la venta de armas a la población civil". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
238. ^ "Así operan los 'colectivos', las fuerzas paramilitares chavistas de Venezuela" [This is how the 'collectives', the Venezuelan Chavista paramilitary forces, operate]. El Pais. 23 February 2014. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
239. Gurney, Kyra. "Venezuela's Leftist Collectives: Criminals or Revolutionaries?". InSight Crime. Archived from the original on 26 November 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
240. Markovits, Martin and Manuel Rueda (27 March 2013). "Venezuela election is a high stakes affair for local vigilante groups". ABC News. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
241. "SeguridadPúblicayPrivada VenezuelayBolivia" (PDF). Oas.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 August 2010. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
242. Rendon, Lexys (11 September 2011). "Venezuela: Gravísima Crisis de Seguridad Pública". ISSUU.com. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
243. Isoliett Iglesias, Maria (4 January 2012). "Según el Cicpc el 2011 cerró con 1.150 secuestros en todo el país – Sucesos". Eluniversal.com. Archived from the original on 8 January 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
244. "Colectivos de paz accionan armas de fuego en la Rómulo Gallegos ante mirada de la GNB". La Patilla. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
245. "Colectivos estarían involucrados e12 homicidios 25/03/14Caracas". Asociacion Civil Control Ciudadano. Archived from the original on 31 March 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
246. Wallis, Dan (13 February 2014). "Venezuela violence puts focus on militant 'colectivo' groups". Retrieved 20 March 2014.
247. Tapia Reynolds, Gioconda (28 October 2014). "Venezuela marcada por la violencia". Voice of America. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
248. "Nights of terror: Attacks and illegal raids on homes in Venezuela" (PDF). Amnesty International. 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
249. Phillips, Tom (12 March 2019). "US pulls all staff from Venezuela as Maduro blames blackout on 'demonic' Trump plot". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
250. ^ Phillips, Tom (1 April 2019). "Venezuela: Maduro calls on armed groups to keep order amid electricity rationing". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
251. Torchia, Christopher (1 April 2019). "Venezuela's Maduro announces power rationing amid outages". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
252. "Venezuela murder rate dips, partly due to migration: monitoring group". Reuters. 27 December 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
253. "Venezuela, otra vez el país más peligroso de América Latina: registró 16.506 muertes violentas en 2019". Infobae (in European Spanish). 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
254. ^ Hernández, Arelis R. and Mariana Zuñiga (12 April 2019). "Political detentions climbing amid worsening Venezuela crisis". The Washington Post – via ProQuest.
255. "On Venezuelan independence day, Maduro calls for dialogue as Guaido slams 'dictatorship'". Reuters. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
256. ^ "UN report cites 'shockingly high' number of likely 'executions' in Venezuela". France 24. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
257. "UN human rights chief 'hopeful' Venezuelan authorities are ready to address violations, calls for dialogue". UN News. 4 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
258. Geneva, Staff and agencies in (16 September 2020). "Venezuela: UN accuses Maduro government of crimes against humanity". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
259. "Maduro cierra la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de Derechos Humanos de la ONU y expulsa a sus funcionarios". El Mundo (in Spanish). 15 February 2024. Retrieved 22 February 2024.
260. ^ Olivares, Francisco (13 September 2014). "Best and brightest for export". El Universal. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
261. ^ "Hugo Chavez is Scaring Away Talent". Newsweek. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
262. ^ "How the Venezuelan migration crisis affects South America". Straits Times. 27 August 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
263. Gonzalez, Angel; Minaya, Ezequiel (17 October 2011). "Venezuelan Diaspora Booms Under Chávez". Dow Jones & Company Inc. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
264. "1,8 millones de venezolanos han emigrado en 10 años". Globovision. 23 April 2015. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
265. "PGA Group estima que 1,8 millones de venezolanos han emigrado en 10 años". La Nación. 23 April 2015. Archived from the original on 25 April 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
266. ^ "Venezuelan outflow continues unabated, stands now at 3.4 million" (Press release). UNHCR-IOM. 22 February 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
267. ^ Ozug, Matt; Cala, Christina; Shapiro, Ari (4 April 2019). "Chronicles of a Venezuelan exodus: More families fell the crisis on foot every day". NPR. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
268. ^ "The Venezuelan walkers". Human Rights Watch. 5 September 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
269. ^ Casey, Nicholas (25 November 2016). "Hungry Venezuelans flee in boats to escape economic collapse". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
270. Brown, Tom (16 July 2007). "Venezuelans, fleeing Chavez, seek U.S. safety net". Reuters. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
271. Symmes Cobb, Julia; Garcia Rawlins, Carlos (15 October 2014). "Economic crisis, political strife drive Venezuela brain-drain". Reuters. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
272. Chacón, Francisco (6 February 2019). "Así se gestó la presencia de Novo Banco en Venezuela" (in Spanish). ABC. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
273. "Venezuela ranked world's most miserable economy, Singapore is third-least". The Straits Times. Bloomberg. 17 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
274. Kurmanaev, Anatoly (23 February 2020). "Venezuela's Socialists Embrace Business, Making Partner of a 'Parasite'". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
275. "Venezuela's slight economic recovery fades due to oil price fall and pandemic, Congress says". Reuters. 17 July 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
276. Country Ratings and Status, 1973-2015 %28FINAL%29.xls "Individual country ratings and status". Freedom House. Retrieved 8 April 2019. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
277. Vyas, Kejal (7 November 2018). "Venezuelans despair as companies flee". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
278. Pons, Corina and Mayela Armas (12 April 2019). "Blackouts threaten death blow to Venezuela's industrial survivors". Reuters. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
279. Buitrago, Deisy and Fabián Andrés Cambero (6 July 2018). "Venezuela's domestic airline industry suffers amid economic crisis". Reuters. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
280. ^ "Argentine Airlines suspends flights to Venezuela". BBC. 9 October 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
281. Romo, Rafael (14 May 2014). "Alitalia joins other airlines suspending or reducing flights to Venezuela". CNN. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
282. ^ Mandel, Eric (1 August 2017). "Delta pulling last direct flight from Atlanta to Venezuela". Atlanta Business Chronicle. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
283. Tanzi, Christine Jenkins (9 August 2017). "Why airlines hate flying to Venezuela". Bloomberg. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
284. "WATCH: Traveller shot and killed at ticket counter in Venezuelan airport". News24. 9 August 2017. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
285. "Egyptian visitor killed at Venezuela's main airport". NDTV. Associated Press. 20 March 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
286. "American Airlines suspends flights to Venezuela over safety concerns". NBC News. Associated Press. 15 March 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
287. "Turkish Airlines starts direct Istanbul-Havana-Caracas flights". EFE. 20 December 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
288. ^ Suarez Sang, Lucia I (8 April 2019). "US-blacklisted Iranian airline begins direct flights to Venezuela". FOX News. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
289. "Mahan Air inaugura vuelo directo entre Irán y Venezuela" [Mahan Air inaugurates direct flight between Iran and Venezuela]. NTN 24 (in Spanish). 8 April 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
290. "US suspends all flights to Venezuela citing safety and security". ABC News. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
291. López Maya, Margarita (2016). El ocaso del chavismo: Venezuela 2005-2015. ????. pp. 354–355. ISBN 9788417014254.
292. "Venezuela 2014 inflation hits 68.5 pct - Central Bank". 13 February 2015. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
293. "Venezuela annual inflation 180 percent". Reuters. 1 October 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
294. Patton, Mike (9 May 2014). "The Three Countries With The Highest Inflation". Retrieved 17 April 2018.
295. Hanke, Steve (18 August 2018). "Venezuela's Great Bolivar Scam, Nothing but a Face Lift". Forbes. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
296. Phillips, Tom (10 January 2019). "Maduro starts new Venezuela term by accusing US of imperialist 'world war'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
297. "Tiendas de ropa eliminan etiquetas y habladores para agilizar aumento de precios | La Region". Diario La Region (in European Spanish). 12 December 2017. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
298. Rosati, Andrew (5 December 2017). "Desperate Venezuelans Turn to Video Games to Survive". Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
299. Dubrowski, Doug (26 March 2019). "Playing for Their Lives: How a 2001 Video Game Is Feeding Venezuela". National Interest.
300. "IMF sees Venezuela inflation at 10 million percent in 2019". Reuters. 9 October 2018. Archived from the original on 26 January 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
301. "Au Venezuela, l'inflation a été de 130 060 % en 2018". Le Monde (in French). 29 May 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
302. Long, Gideon (29 May 2019). "Venezuela data offer rare glimpse of economic chaos". Financial Times. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
303. ^ Wroughton, Lesley; Pons, Corina (30 May 2019). "IMF denies pressuring Venezuela to release economic data". Reuters. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
304. Dulaney, Chelsey and Kejal Vyas (16 September 2014). "S&P Downgrades Venezuela on Worsening Economy Rising Inflation, Economic Pressures Prompt Rating Cut". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
305. "Unemployment rate by World".
306. Chinea, Eyanir (2 March 2017). "Job losses, low wages add to Venezuela economic hardship". Reuters. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
307. "Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017" (PDF). US Department of Treasury, Resource Center. Federal Register.
308. "Final List of Deliverable Obligations for the 2017 Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Credit Derivatives Auction Settlement Terms". cbonds.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
309. Gibbs, Stephen (15 November 2017). "President Maduro brings Venezuela to brink of bankruptcy". The Times. London. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
310. Heeb, Gina (7 March 2019). "Venezuela's debt has exploded to $156 billion, according to a new report". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
311. ^ Lugo, Luis Alonso (8 March 2019). "World Bank: Venezuela must pay Conoco more than $8 billion". ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
312. Parraga, Marianna and David French (21 March 2019). "U.S. refiner Citgo taking offers on $1.8-billion, three-year loan: sources". Reuters. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
313. Pons, Corina and Rodrigo Campos (16 January 2019). "Venezuela bonds rally as opposition challenges Maduro". Reuters. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
314. Armas, Mayela (11 January 2019). "Venezuela bondholders say they will not negotiate with Maduro". CNBC. Archived from the original on 15 April 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
315. Neuman, William; Krauss, Clifford (14 June 2018). "Workers Flee and Thieves Loot Venezuela's Reeling Oil Giant". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
316. Zerpa, Fabiola (24 November 2018). "Venezuela Is Leaking Oil Everywhere". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
317. E.B. Brossard (1993). Petroleum research and Venezuela's INTEVEP: the clash of the giants. PennWell Books/INTEVEP. ISBN 978-0-87814-399-3.
318. Gooding, I. (25 August 2005). "Grandmother slams Chavez 'He does not know one thing about the oil industry'". The Trinidad Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
319. ^ Urdaneta, Sheyla; Kurmanaev, Anatoly; Herrera, Isayen (7 October 2020). "Venezuela, Once an Oil Giant, Reaches the End of an Era". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
320. "Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate | Council on Foreign Relations". www.cfr.org. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
321. "INFORME DE COYUNTURA PAÍS VENEZUELA - NOVIEMBRE 2016". Scribd. Datincorp. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
322. Lapatilla (17 September 2018). "El 84,6% de los venezolanos quieren que Maduro y el chavismo se vayan ya del poder (encuesta Meganálisis)". LaPatilla.com (in European Spanish). Retrieved 24 March 2024.
323. "Venezuelans want Maduro out, but oppose foreign military intervention". United Press International. 8 January 2019.
324. "Meganálisis: 88.9 % de venezolanos quiere que Maduro y el chavismo se vayan ya" [Meganalisis: 88.9% of Venezuelans want Maduro and Chavismo to leave]. La Patilla (in Spanish). 15 March 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2019.
325. Wyss, Jim (4 March 2019). "'The chain of command is broken,' Guaidó tells supporters upon his return to Venezuela". Miami Herald. Retrieved 19 March 2019. According to a recent Datanalisis poll, Guaidó has an approval rating of 61 percent while Maduro's has hit an all-time low of 14 percent. citing Francisco Monaldi Tweet of 2 March, "Maduro cae a su mínimo histórico de aprobación con 14%. Guaidó logra 61% de aprobación y arrasaría en una elección con 77% vs. 23% Maduro."
326. Vasquez, Alex. "Guaido's Domain Trembles After Failed Incursion in Venezuela". Bloomberg. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
327. Lee, Matthew; Deb Riechmann (29 January 2019). "US hits Venezuela with oil sanctions to pressure Maduro". AP. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
328. "Maduro reveals secret meetings with U.S. envoy". POLITICO. 15 February 2019. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
329. ^ Forero, Juan and David Luhnow (30 January 2019). "Venezuelans Fear New U.S. Oil Sanctions Will Hit them Hardest; New U.S. Penalties are Designed to Choke Venezuelan Oil Revenue and Pave the Way for Better Days, but Many Worry about Collateral Damage". The Wall Street Journal – via ProQuest.
330. "Venezuela condemns US sanctions against state oil firm". BBC News. 25 May 2011.
331. "U.S. declares Venezuela a national security threat, sanctions top officials". Reuters. 10 March 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
332. "With executive order, Trump imposes new round of Venezuela sanctions". USA Today. 25 August 2017.
333. "Human rights violations in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela: a downward spiral with no end in sight" (PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. June 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
334. ^ Selby-Green, Michael (27 January 2019). "Venezuela crisis: Former UN rapporteur says US sanctions are killing citizens". The Independent. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
335. ^ "10 claves del informe de Michelle Bachelet sobre Venezuela" [10 keys if Michelle Bachelet's report on Venezuela]. Prodavinci (in Spanish). 20 March 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
336. "Oral update on the situation of human rights in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela". OHCHR. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019. The extent and severity of the crises in food, health care and basic services, have not been fully acknowledged by the authorities, thus the measures they have adopted have been insufficient. ... Although this pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions in 2017, I am concerned that the recent sanctions on financial transfers related to the sale of Venezuelan oil within the United States may contribute to aggravating the economic crisis, with possible repercussions on people's basic rights and wellbeing.
337. "Maduro: FM Held 'Secret Talks' With US Envoy to Venezuela". Voice of America. 14 February 2019. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
338. "The Latest: Maduro Invites Trump Envoy to Come to Venezuela". AP Worldstream. 14 February 2019 – via ProQuest.
339. Borger, Julian (31 March 2020). "US ignores calls to suspend Venezuela and Iran sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
340. "New Report Documents How U.S. Sanctions Have Directly Aggravated Venezuela's Economic Crisis". WOLA. 29 October 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
341. Jakes, Lara; Kurmanaev, Anatoly (8 March 2021). "Biden Grants Protections for Venezuelans to Remain in U.S." The New York Times. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
342. "Venezuela security operations leave over 1,300 dead in five months, U.N. rights office says". Reuters. 2 July 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
343. Calles, Óscar. "Carta abierta a la Relatora Especial, Alena Douhan, por su visita a Venezuela │ PROVEA". PROVEA (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 March 2021.
344. ^ Lusa, Agência (2 February 2021). "Venezuela. Relatora especial da ONU em visita para avaliar impacto de sanções internacionais". Observador (in Portuguese). Retrieved 11 March 2021.
345. "66 Venezuelan NGOs Pen Open Letter to UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions". Washington Office on Latin America. 3 February 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
346. Käufer, Tobias (14 February 2021). "UN-Sonderbericht: Schallende Ohrfeige für die Venezuela-Politik des Westens". DIE WELT (in German). Retrieved 11 March 2021.
347. "Maduro anuncia que este jueves 18 comienza la vacunación". CNN (in Spanish). 18 February 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
348. "¿Quién es Alena Douhan, la relatora de la ONU que visitó Venezuela?". El Nacional (in Spanish). 12 February 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
349. "La rapporteuse de l'ONU juge " dévastateurs " les effets des sanctions sur le Venezuela". Le Monde.fr (in French). 15 February 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
350. "Relatora de la ONU pide levantar sancionas contra Venezuela. - 13.02.2021". DW.COM (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 11 June 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
351. Sequera, Vivian (12 February 2021). "U.N. envoy urges U.S. to relax Venezuela sanctions, drawing opposition rebuke". U.S. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
352. Moleiro, Alonso (13 February 2021). "Una relatora de la ONU afirma que las sanciones a Maduro "han agravado las calamidades de los venezolanos"". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 March 2021.
353. Barráez, Sebastiana (17 February 2021). "Qué hay detrás del informe de la relatora especial de Derechos Humanos de la ONU para encubrir los crímenes contra presos políticos en Venezuela". infobae (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 February 2021.
354. ""Falta mucho por decir": activistas venezolanos sobre informe de relatora de la ONU". Radio y Televisión Martí (in Spanish). 16 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
355. Martínez, Sammy Paola (13 February 2021). "Mariela Ramírez: Alena Douhan desconoció violaciones a los DD. HH. y desmantelamiento del Estado". El Pitazo (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 February 2021.
356. "Oposición acusa a relatora de ONU de seguir narrativa de Maduro por sanciones". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 12 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
357. Pengelly, Martin (18 February 2019). "Ditch Maduro or lose everything, Trump tells Venezuelan army". The Guardian.
358. Johnson, Jenna and John Wagner (11 August 2017). "Trump won't 'rule out a military option' in Venezuela". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
359. Goodman, Joshua (5 July 2017). "Trump pressed aides on Venezuela invasion, US official says". The Military Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
360. "Trump's Threat to Invade Venezuela Boosts Embattled Leader Maduro". Slate. 12 August 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
361. Londoño Ernesto and Nicholas Casey (8 September 2018). "Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
362. Alsema, Adriaan (16 September 2018). "Colombia stands down against possible military intervention in Venezuela". Columbia Reports. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
363. "Canada, Latin American allies at odds over Venezuela intervention pledge". CBC News. 19 September 2018. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
364. ^ Pardo, Paul (4 February 2019). "¿Cómo sería una invasión de Estados Unidos en Venezuela?". El Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 February 2019.
365. "Russia denies sending mercenaries to protect Venezuela's president". South China Morning Post. The Guardian. 28 January 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
366. "Russian bravado 'may lead to war'". PerthNow. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
367. • Luzi, Iacopo. "USNS Comfort Hospital Ship on Humanitarian Mission in South America". Voice of America. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
     • Daniels, Joe Parkin (18 November 2018). "US navy hospital ship stokes tensions by giving Venezuelan refugees free care". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
     • Navy, U. S. "Special Report: Enduring Promise". Navy Live. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
     • "Hospital ship to depart Norfolk Oct. 11 for Enduring Promise mission i". U.S. Southern Command. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
     • "U.S. Navy hospital ship set to deploy for 11-week medical assistance mission". WTKR.com. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
     • "Hospital ship USNS Comfort heads to Central and South Americas". WVEC. 10 October 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
368. "Red Cross warns U.S. about risks of sending aid to Venezuela". PBS NewsHour. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
369. Nichols, Michelle (6 February 2019). "U.N. warns against politicizing humanitarian aid in Venezuela". Reuters. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
370. "U.S. Masses Aid Along Venezuelan Border As Some Humanitarian Groups Warn Of Risks". NPR.org. 16 February 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
371. "Venezuela's border aid blockade turns deadly". DW.COM. 23 February 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
372. "Aid truck goes up in flames on Colombian-Venezuelan border - TV footage". Reuters. Reuters. 23 February 2019. Archived from the original on 24 February 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
373. Cullinane, Susannah; Castillo, Jackie (24 February 2019). "Venezuelan opposition leader arrives in Bogota for meeting with Pence". CNN. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
374. "The U.S. Blamed Maduro for Burning Aid to Venezuela. New Video Casts Doubt". The New York Times. 10 March 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
375. ^ Casey, Nicholas; Koettl, Christoph; Acosta, Deborah (10 March 2019). "Footage Contradicts U.S. Claim That Nicolás Maduro Burned Aid Convoy". The New York Times.
376. "Colombia niega manipulación de video del incendio de camión con ayuda para Venezuela". El Pitazo (in Spanish). 12 March 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
377. "Entrevista de Juan Guaidó con la BBC: "Ninguno de los organismos de seguridad que el gobierno controla se ha atrevido a apresarme"". BBC (in Spanish). 14 March 2019. Archived from the original on 16 March 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2021. Que sugiere, tal cual. Esa fue la conclusión del reportaje: que presuntamente pudo haber sido. Eso fue un punto de vista de un reportaje de investigación del periódico. Fueron tres camiones quemados y ellos hacen la referencia a un video cuadro a cuadro y a una imagen que podría haber sido el resultante de eso.
378. "Periodista denuncia plagio de sus fotos para tergiversar quema de camiones en la frontera". La Patilla (in European Spanish). 25 February 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
379. "AFP: Opositores no incendiaron vehículo con ayuda humanitaria". Agence France-Presse (in Spanish). El Carabobeño. 12 March 2019. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
380. "Fire on the Border: Analyzing Venezuela's February 23 Border Clashes". Bellingcat. 10 March 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2019. The open source evidence examined for this article is not complete: it does not show the moment of ignition. For this reason, it is not possible to make a definitive determination regarding the cause of the fire.
381. Pons, Corina and Brian Ellsworth (29 March 2019). "International Red Cross ready for Venezuela humanitarian aid operation". Reuters. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
382. ^ Daniels, Joe Parkin (29 March 2019). "Venezuela: Red Cross brokers Maduro-Guaidó deal to allow aid delivery". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
383. "Maduro sostuvo encuentro con representantes de la Cruz Roja" (in Spanish). NTN24. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
384. "First shipment of Red Cross humanitarian aid arrives in Venezuela". Reuters. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
385. ^ Herrera, Isayen and Anatoly Kurmanaev (17 April 2019). "Red Cross grapples with aid distribution in polarized Venezuela". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
386. Goodman, Joshua (29 April 2021). "Watchdog: US aid to Venezuela driven by more than just need". Associated Press. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
387. "U.S. aid to Venezuela was not aligned with humanitarian principles, audit finds". Reuters. 30 April 2021. Retrieved 8 November 2022.

External links

• "Into the 'Venezuela's Fixed' Social Media Rabbit Hole". Caracas Chronicles. 16 November 2022. Retrieved 19 November 2022.

v t e Hugo Chávez
45th President of Venezuela (1999–2013)
Early life and career	Early life Military career Coup attempt of 1992 Presidential election of 1998 Death and state funeral
Presidency	Cabinet of Hugo Chávez 1999 Constitution General election of 2000 Presidential election of 2006 United Socialist Party of Venezuela Constitutional referendum of 2007 Constitutional referendum of 2009 Presidential election of 2012
Political events	Coup attempt of 2002 Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003 Recall referendum of 2004 2005 Venezuelan parliamentary election 2007 protests RCTV Referendum 2010 Venezuelan parliamentary election
Domestic policy	Boliburguesía Bolivarianism Bolivarian Circles Bolivarian missions Bolivarian Revolution Chavismo Colectivos Economic policy Plan Bolívar 2000 Socialism of the 21st century Venezuelan communal councils
Foreign policy	Bank of the South Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Petrocaribe
Image	Aló Presidente Bolivarian propaganda Chavismo: The Plague of the 21st Century El ocaso del socialismo mágico El pueblo soy yo Hugo Chávez's cult of personality Mi amigo Hugo ¿Por qué no te callas? Public image of Hugo Chávez ¿¡Revolución!? teleSUR The Silence and the Scorpion Venezuelanalysis Venezuela Information Office
← Rafael Caldera Nicolás Maduro → Category

• Crisis in Venezuela
• 2000s in economic history
• 2010s in economic history
• 2020s in economic history
• 2000s in politics
• 2010s in politics
• 2020s in politics
• 2000s in Venezuela
• 2010s in Venezuela
• 2020s in Venezuela
• Economic collapses
• Economic history of Venezuela
• Political history of Venezuela
• Hugo Chávez