Venezuelans daily struggle for food

Getting by during hard times in Venezuela for Yeri Guerra means that some days she skips meals so her two young boys still at home can eat before heading off to school.

Other days, when things are even more desperate, she said, they skip meals and none of them eat.

"We feed on one little chicken drumstick, for the three of us," said Guerra, who sometimes doesn't send her two kids to school because she can't afford breakfast for them. "Sometimes it's only for them, I skip my meals so it's enough for them." Guerra, 39, isn't alone.

According to a survey recently published by the UN World Food Program, one in every three Venezuelans cope with food insecurity, unable to get enough to meet their basic dietary needs. In an apparent shift for Venezuela, people surveyed said food is now available in a country once riddled by shortages, but now it's more difficult to afford because they've lost their jobs as Venezuela's crisis deepens.

The South American nation was once among Latin America's richest nations, sitting atop the world's largest oil reserves. But it has been in a steady downward spiral, which has reached social and economic crisis in recent years. Remote states like Delta Amacuro, Amazonas and Falcon had especially high levels of food insecurity, the study says.

In more prosperous regions one in five people have trouble putting food on the table.

As the capital, Caracas has the nation's high concentration of wealth, but it's common to see everybody from children to the elderly looking for leftovers in the garbage piles outside homes and behind restaurants. When mangoes come into season, the poor are often seen in the streets throwing rocks and sticks high into trees hoping to knock loose fresh fruit for a meal.

Wilfredo Corniel, a priest who organizes free meals in the Caracas slum called The Cemetery, said he was spurred to action upon seeing people rummaging through garbage. "One day we saw a dog fighting with a man over a bone," Corniel said. "A bone that had nothing on it."

Corniel said he's concerned about the long-term impact on young people growing up without enough to eat, who may have life-long health impacts.

The World Food Program's nationwide survey released Feb. 23 based on data from 8,375 questionnaires reveals a startling picture of the large number of Venezuelans surviving off a diet consisting largely of tubers and beans as hyperinflation renders many salaries worthless.

A total of 9.3 million people, roughly one-third of the population, are moderately or severely food insecure, said the World Food Program's study, which was conducted at the invitation of the Venezuelan government.

Venezuela's crisis has driven more than 4.5 million people to flee the nation.

They're escaping inflation that's left the monthly minimum wage at the equivalent to roughly 4 US dollars and shortages of basic goods, such as medicine.

Despite the decline, Socialist President Nicolas Maduro has managed to stay in power despite the attempts of opposition leader Juan Guaido to overthrow him and the increasing sanctions of the United States.

Maduro's government hasn't commented on the study.

For Guerra, home is a small apartment up a winding flight of stairs in the Caracas slum of Petare, notorious as one of the largest and most violent in South America.

She talked about her family's struggles to eat one recent morning as she stood over a gas flame on her stove flatting balls of cornmeal in her hands to make a Venezuelan staple called arepas.

She scrambled two eggs and fed her two boys, ages 4 and 11, seated at their kitchen table.

Her children aren't malnourished, thanks to a neighborhood soup kitchen run by a charity, where she and her two sons eat lunch five days a week. She often saves some of her lunch to have for dinner at night. Other meals depend on how successful she is selling cookies and candy on the street a few evenings.

She earns about 5 US dollars a week, which she also uses to buy other necessities.

 Since September, she's been the lone provider for her family. Her husband went to work one day selling snacks on the street, only to be found beaten to death and robbed.

Guerra recalled just a few years ago how she and her relatives used to eat together without worrying about the next meal.

Today, most of her relatives have emigrated to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, leaving her with little more than memories of better times.