Food scarce in Venezuela

[Ima Cat]

They have plenty of bananas, one of the best, most digestible foods for humans and other apes.

 

[Cellblock2429]

 

[waltky]

Even lil' kids beggin' for food onna streets...

Venezuelans protest food shortages
Mon, Jun 05, 2017 - CANNOT FIND BREAD: About 93 percent of Venezuelans cannot afford to buy enough food and 73 percent of them have lost weight in the past year, according to a study

Banging empty pots and brandishing signs saying “only the government is growing fatter,” a group of Venezuelans in Caracas on Saturday protested food shortages in the crisis-stricken country. The march by a few hundred people, quickly halted by security officials firing tear gas, built on two months of near-daily demonstrations against leftist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who critics say has plunged oil-rich Venezuela into its worst economic crisis in history. Protesters are demanding early presidential elections, freedom for jailed rights advocates, and humanitarian aid to allow in scarce medicines and food.

Currency controls that crimp imports, as well as ailing local farms, have left many supermarket shelves empty. About 93 percent of Venezuelans cannot afford to buy enough food and 73 percent of them have lost weight in the past year, according to a study by three universities. Children begging in front of bakeries, restaurants, or markets are a common sight, while more and more people are salvaging food from the trash.

Many in the middle class have had to cut back on meat or vegetables and instead get by on cheaper starches. “Sometimes I only eat once or twice a day. Today I couldn’t find bread [for breakfast] at any bakery, and I came here because I can’t just stay home watching this country fall to pieces,” said Consuelo, a 60-year-old protester banging two spoons together at the march in western Caracas. Traditionally a poorer, pro-government area, parts of western Caracas are now home to road barricades, graffiti reading “Maduro dictator!” and clashes between hooded youth and Venezuelan National Guards. “It’s time for Nicolas Maduro to listen to the people and finally leave,” said Consuelo, adding that she prays every day for an end to the crisis.

However, his opponents and even some dissenting voices from within the government have slammed the plan. Venezuela’s chief state prosecutor has said that creating the assembly without a plebiscite, as happened in 1999 when Chavez rewrote the constitution, threatened to “eliminate” democracy in Venezuela. The opposition is depicting this round of protests as a last-ditch effort to stop Maduro from building a “Cuban-style” one-party system in Venezuela and avoid a full-fledged meltdown. For many Venezuelans, daily life already revolves around trying to find food.

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[waltky]

Venezuelans so hungry dey eatin' zoo animals...

Police believe thieves steal Venezuela zoo animals to eat them
August 16, 2017 - Venezuela authorities are investigating the theft of animals from a zoo in western state of Zulia that were likely snatched to be eaten, a further sign of hunger in a country struggling with chronic food shortages.

A police official said two collared peccaries, which are similar in appearance to boars, were stolen over the weekend from the Zulia Metropolitan Zoological Park in the sweltering city of Maracaibo near the Colombian border. "What we presume is that they (were taken) with the intention of eating them," Luis Morales, an official for the Zulia division of the National Police, told reporters on Tuesday. The chaotic collapse of the country's socialist economic model has created chronic food shortages that have fueled malnutrition and left millions seeking food anywhere they can find it, including in trash cans and dumpsters.

President Nicolas Maduro blames food shortages on opposition protests that have blocked streets and highways and a broader "economic war" led by adversaries with the help of Washington. But zoo head Leonardo Nunez said a wave of thefts that in recent weeks had affected 10 species including a buffalo, which he said was cut into pieces, was orchestrated by "drug dealers" seeking to sell the animals. "They take everything here! The animals weren't stolen to be eaten," Nunez said in an interview on Wednesday.

Mauricio Castillo, a former zoo director, said thieves had made off with two tapirs, a jungle animal that is also similar to a pig that is described as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Shortages have also left zoos without sufficient food to feed animals, with some 50 animals starving to death last year at a Caracas zoos, according to a union leader. The government denied the animals had starved, insisting they had been treated "like family."

Police believe thieves steal Venezuela zoo animals to eat them