Since 2016, nearly two million people have fled the country. Those unfortunate enough to stay are facing life-threatening shortages of food and medicine, one of the highest murder rates in the world and an annual inflation rate that now sits above 40,000%.
The seeds of this crisis were planted in 1999, but the chaos has flourished under President Nicolas Maduro and his incompetent, corrupt ideologues.
A national survey in 2017 found that 87% of families live below the poverty line. Nearly two-thirds of Venezuelans reported losing an average of 25 pounds in the previous year — some have called it the “Maduro diet.” The Pharmaceutical Federation estimates that 80% of drugs are not available in drugstores. There are outbreaks of diseases that had been eradicated or were under control, such as diphtheria, measles and malaria.
Maduro has reacted to the collapse of the economy by consolidating the dictatorship, intensifying human rights abuses (including torture) and further cracking down on the private sector. He claims that his regime is the victim of an “economic war” waged by the opposition and the United States. The reality is that this man-made tragedy has a well-known culprit: socialism.