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 "I feel like my heart is breaking," Rivero, 32, told Reuters in an
interview here in the capital of the western Venezuelan state of
Lara. "I don't know what's wrong with my son."
She tried repeatedly to see nutritionists, but failed. One didn't
show up, another required a month-long wait. Desperate, Rivero
attended a charity event offering checkups and information for
families of children with nutritional problems.
At the event, organized by Caritas, the Catholic aid organization,
doctors performed a check-up. With donations from the charity, and
financial assistance from siblings now living abroad, Rivero began
supplementing her breast milk with baby formula.
Within weeks, Kenai rebounded. By December, he reached an acceptable
weight for his age. But Rivero, like many enduring a recession now
in its sixth year, fears she could once again find herself short of
the money needed to keep him healthy.
"How am I going to afford such expensive food?" she asks.
Venezuela's economic crisis is taking a crippling toll on the
country's children, who face a growing risk of malnutrition as basic
food is increasingly out of reach for many families. The public
health system, notoriously short of medicine and other standard
supplies, is unable to provide much succor, and aid groups struggle
to bridge the gap.
President Nicolas Maduro, increasingly a global pariah for
undermining democracy and overseeing the country's economic
collapse, blames the crisis and food shortages on U.S. sanctions
meant to force him from power.
The leader, also accused of overseeing widespread human-rights
abuses and turning a blind eye to suffering across the
once-prosperous country, often says foreign media and global aid
organizations exaggerate Venezuela's problems.
A lack of proper nutrition is stunting growth, diminishing cognitive
development and causing physical and emotional trauma among hundreds
of thousands of young Venezuelans. As a result, doctors and other
health experts argue, Venezuela faces a generation of young people
who will never meet their full physical or mental potential.
Between 2013 and 2018, according to the United Nations Children's
Fund, or UNICEF, 13% of the country's children suffered from
malnutrition. Caritas, in a recent study conducted in five
Venezuelan states and the capital, Caracas, found that 16% of
children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition and
that nearly twice as many suffer from low growth rates for their
age.
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Although the United Nations and other agencies import some food and
nutritional aid, it isn't enough for Venezuela's needs and the
assistance doesn't always get where it is most required. The U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has raised just
a third of the $222.7 million it sought for Venezuela for the second
half of 2019, according to official U.N. data.
"A population suffering from malnutrition implies we are going to
have adults with less physical and intellectual potential," said
Raquel Mendoza, a nutritionist at Mapani, an aid group in
Barquisimeto that helps poor families diagnose and treat
malnourished children. "We're going to see a regression in the
development of the country because human resources are diminished."
Venezuela's Information Ministry, responsible for government
communications including those of the Health Ministry, didn't
respond to requests for comment.
The ministry's 2016 annual report, the last one it published,
celebrated advances in nutrition since the 1980s and said child
malnutrition "has stopped being a public health problem."
For those without enough to eat, the problem is very real.
Rosa Rojas, a 32-year-old widow and mother of six, relies on rice
and other carbohydrates to keep her kids fed. Rare is the day they
get three full meals. "We just eat twice," she said.
Gregoria Hernandez, a 23-year-old homemaker, recently hospitalized
two young sons, Pastor and Josue Suarez, because they were
malnourished. Shortly after their release, Sonia, her 7-month-old
daughter, needed similar medical help.
"I feel like the worst of mothers," Hernandez told Reuters. "I don't
have a way to help them, to give them what they need."
Sometimes, families are torn between competing needs.
Deina Alvarez, a 6-year-old student and aspiring gymnast, is
underweight and receiving nutritional supplements from a local
charity. Although her parents both work, they don't earn enough to
fill a grocery cart and buy the medicines they both need as
epileptics.
"Either we pay for medicine or we pay for food," said Diana
Rodriguez, Deina's mother.
(Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in Caracas. Editing by Paulo
Prada)
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