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Photos: Malnourished Venezuelans pin hopes on aid blocked at borders

Aid has become a proxy war in a battle for control of Venezuela, after opposition leader Juan Guaido in January invoked a constitutional provision to assume an interim presidency, saying President Nicolas Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent. In the process, Venezuelans' diets have become ever more deficient in vitamins and protein, as currency controls restrict food imports and salaries fail to keep apace with inflation that is now above 2 million percent annually.

Updated on: Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM IST

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Yaneidi Guzman poses for a picture at her home in Caracas, Venezuela. Guzman has lost a third of her weight over the past three years as Venezuela’s economic collapse made food unaffordable and she now hopes the opposition will succeed in bringing urgently needed foreign aid to the South American country. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman poses for a picture at her home in Caracas, Venezuela. Guzman has lost a third of her weight over the past three years as Venezuela’s economic collapse made food unaffordable and she now hopes the opposition will succeed in bringing urgently needed foreign aid to the South American country. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman sits on her mother-in-law’s bed as her husband, Jorge Perez, stands behind her. Guzman’s clothes hang limply off her gaunt frame. The 38-year-old is one of many Venezuelans suffering from malnutrition as the once-prosperous, oil-rich OPEC nation has seen its economy halve in size over the last five years under President Nicolas Maduro. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman sits on her mother-in-law’s bed as her husband, Jorge Perez, stands behind her. Guzman’s clothes hang limply off her gaunt frame. The 38-year-old is one of many Venezuelans suffering from malnutrition as the once-prosperous, oil-rich OPEC nation has seen its economy halve in size over the last five years under President Nicolas Maduro. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Jorge Perez looks at a phone in his mother’s home. Growing malnutrition is one of the reasons opposition leader Juan Guaido moved ahead with his plans to bring supplies of food and medicine into Venezuela by land and sea last Saturday, despite resistance from Maduro, who denies there is a humanitarian crisis and has said it was a “show” to undermine him. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Jorge Perez looks at a phone in his mother’s home. Growing malnutrition is one of the reasons opposition leader Juan Guaido moved ahead with his plans to bring supplies of food and medicine into Venezuela by land and sea last Saturday, despite resistance from Maduro, who denies there is a humanitarian crisis and has said it was a “show” to undermine him. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman stands in her kitchen at home in Caracas. On the wall of Guzman’s home in the hillside district of Petare in the capital Caracas, hangs a wooden plaque with the psalm “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” Yet her fridge is empty except for a few bags of beans. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman stands in her kitchen at home in Caracas. On the wall of Guzman’s home in the hillside district of Petare in the capital Caracas, hangs a wooden plaque with the psalm “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” Yet her fridge is empty except for a few bags of beans. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman prepares sardines in her kitchen. Sometimes she wakes up not knowing what she will feed her family that day. Mostly they eat rice, lentils and cassava. While Guzman says she would welcome the aid, she is concerned the one-off shipment would be a drop in an ocean given Venezuelans’ needs. “You don’t only eat once,” she said. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman prepares sardines in her kitchen. Sometimes she wakes up not knowing what she will feed her family that day. Mostly they eat rice, lentils and cassava. While Guzman says she would welcome the aid, she is concerned the one-off shipment would be a drop in an ocean given Venezuelans’ needs. “You don’t only eat once,” she said. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman works as a street sweeper. “I hope they let the aid in,” said Guzman, who despite holding down two jobs cannot make enough money for the tests, supplements or protein-rich diet that doctors have prescribed her. She and her husband make less than $30 per month and prioritize feeding their three young children. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman works as a street sweeper. “I hope they let the aid in,” said Guzman, who despite holding down two jobs cannot make enough money for the tests, supplements or protein-rich diet that doctors have prescribed her. She and her husband make less than $30 per month and prioritize feeding their three young children. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman shops for groceries. A sign (R) advertises a combo offer of a kilo of rice, pasta, salt, flour respectively and a half kilo of butter for 19500 Bolivars. The minimum monthly wage in Venezuela is 18000 Bolivars. Some political analysts said Saturday’s showdown was more about testing the military’s loyalty towards Maduro, rather than aid. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman shops for groceries. A sign (R) advertises a combo offer of a kilo of rice, pasta, salt, flour respectively and a half kilo of butter for 19500 Bolivars. The minimum monthly wage in Venezuela is 18000 Bolivars. Some political analysts said Saturday’s showdown was more about testing the military’s loyalty towards Maduro, rather than aid. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Some aid agencies like Catholic relief agency Caritas are already on the ground providing what help they can. In San Francisco de Yare, a town 70 km south of Caracas, Maria Guitia’s one-year-old baby’s belly is distended and his arms thin. The pair live with Guitia’s five siblings and parents in a one-room tin shed with a dirt floor and no running water. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Some aid agencies like Catholic relief agency Caritas are already on the ground providing what help they can. In San Francisco de Yare, a town 70 km south of Caracas, Maria Guitia’s one-year-old baby’s belly is distended and his arms thin. The pair live with Guitia’s five siblings and parents in a one-room tin shed with a dirt floor and no running water. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Maira Guitia, the grandmother of Yeibe Medina prepares plantains at home. Work is scarce and they live off payments for odd jobs and a monthly government handout of heavily-subsidised basic food supplies. They have taken to inventing meals with what little they have like lentils with plantain from the trees in their backyard. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Maira Guitia, the grandmother of Yeibe Medina prepares plantains at home. Work is scarce and they live off payments for odd jobs and a monthly government handout of heavily-subsidised basic food supplies. They have taken to inventing meals with what little they have like lentils with plantain from the trees in their backyard. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Maria Guitia holds her one-year old son Yeibe Medina. Guitia, 21, said her son had lost weight over the past five months until Caritas gave them some nutritional supplements. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Maria Guitia holds her one-year old son Yeibe Medina. Guitia, 21, said her son had lost weight over the past five months until Caritas gave them some nutritional supplements. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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Yaneidi Guzman, holds up an old picture of herself on her phone, at home in Caracas. The United Nations and Red Cross have cautioned against the politicization of aid. The United States, which is pushing Maduro to step down, sent aid for Venezuela to a collection point in neighbouring Colombia in military aircraft, in a show of force. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman, holds up an old picture of herself on her phone, at home in Caracas. The United Nations and Red Cross have cautioned against the politicization of aid. The United States, which is pushing Maduro to step down, sent aid for Venezuela to a collection point in neighbouring Colombia in military aircraft, in a show of force. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

12/12

Yaneidi Guzman combs her daughter’s hair. Guzman dreams of living once more not off foreign aid or government handouts but her own work. “It’s not that I want to be rich, or a millionaire,” she said. “But I do want to give my children a good future, to make sure I can take them to the doctors when they get ill ... and that they eat well.” (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 27, 2019 10:24 AM

Yaneidi Guzman combs her daughter’s hair. Guzman dreams of living once more not off foreign aid or government handouts but her own work. “It’s not that I want to be rich, or a millionaire,” she said. “But I do want to give my children a good future, to make sure I can take them to the doctors when they get ill ... and that they eat well.” (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS)

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