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Workers in Venezuela's education and health sectors have held
three peaceful demonstrations in a dozen cities so far this year
to demand more money.
Venezuela's minimum wage of 130 bolivars a month - around just
$6 - was last adjusted in March 2022, when year-on-year
inflation closed at 305%, according to non-governmental groups
that monitor economic indicators in the absence of official
data.
The government says that U.S sanctions have made it impossible
to control consumer price growth.
"Hunger doesn't know fear, when hunger arrives fear disappears,"
said teacher Nancy Hernandez, 60, during a march in
Barquisimeto, referring to possible clashes with the police.
In Maracaibo, the capital of the once-powerful oil-rich Zulia
state in northwestern Venezuela, protesters marched to the
governor's office.
"What we are experiencing is more than abuse," Zulia reservist
policeman Gustavo Gonzalez, 60, said. "We are starving."
"We're going to have to close the police hospital because (...)
there isn't even one bandage. We policemen from Zulia are
forgotten, we don't have shoes or uniforms," Gonzalez added.
"I never thought I would reach 63 in this way, relying on
garbage to eat," said Humberto Montiel, a pensioner who use to
work on airport construction.
Montiel must clean patios and collect trash because "when my
miserable pension runs out, I am still hungry," he said.
In Valencia, a city in central Venezuela, Jose Francisco
Jimenez, the general secretary of the Association of Employees
of the University of Carabobo, said he and his colleagues had
gathered to demand a dignified salary.
"With a (monthly) salary of just $10 it's impossible for a
family of four or five people to survive," Jimenez, 56, said.
(Reporting by Keren Torres in Barquisimeto, Mariela Nava in
Maracaibo and Tibisay Romero in Valencia; Writing by Oliver
Griffin, Editing by Alistair Bell)
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