Chronic illness and diarrhea surge in quake-hit Venezuelan communities
as humanitarian crisis builds
[July 10, 2026]
By REGINA GARCIA CANO
CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela (AP) — Victims of the powerful twin earthquakes
that jolted Venezuela last month as well as people spared by the
destruction on Thursday flooded relief services offered by
nongovernmental organizations in the hardest-hit areas.
The demand for help comes as the United Nations launched an appeal for
roughly $300 million to assist 1.3 million people in urgent need of aid
in the South American country where nongovernmental organizations until
recently were targets of government repression. Mobile kitchens and
clinics as well as field hospitals now dot public spaces in the northern
state of La Guaira, where most of the devastation occurred.
“It is clear at displacement sites that, particularly after two weeks,
that people are turning up because they haven’t been able to get their
other treatments,” U.N. relief chief Tom Fletcher told The Associated
Press during his visit to Venezuela. “So, they’re not turning up with
just the fractures now, they’re turning up with those longer-term health
needs. And it’s vital that we’re there for them.”
Doctors treating people in that state’s Catia La Mar community on
Thursday reported an increase in skin conditions and diarrheal diseases,
as well as of requests for medications for the treatment of chronic
illnesses, including diabetes and high blood pressure. The emerging
diseases can be tied to crowded living spaces and poor water and
sanitation conditions, which in many communities predate the
earthquakes.
Irma Echarri showed up at a mobile unit on a sidewalk across the street
from a church with the boxes of the eyedrops and pain reliever she
usually takes, hoping that doctors there could give her new ones. She
also wanted to be seen for the pain she developed in her nose after the
June 24 earthquakes.
“It hurts a lot,” Echarri, 67, said while waiting to be seen. “It hurts
because it hurts.”
Echarri’s home was not damaged, but many of her neighbors are living in
temporary shelters or outdoors after 190 buildings collapsed and 856
others were damaged, according to Venezuelan officials, in the
back-to-back earthquakes that killed 3,889 people.
The government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez has estimated that
the earthquakes left about 18,000 people without a home. The displaced
are now living in schools, sidewalks, parks, plazas and other public
spaces.
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Nataly Mayora hangs clothes to dry on a soccer goal net as she does
laundry at a sports center sheltering people displaced by the
earthquakes in La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP
Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
 Fletcher, the head of the U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AP the
United States has so far provided most of the earthquake-response
aid. Much of the assistance on the ground is being delivered by
local groups that have partnered with global humanitarian
organizations.
Among the displaced is Zulbey Reyes, who went to the clinic ran by
the Venezuela-based organization Paluz in partnership with the
global relief agency International Rescue Committee. Reyes, who was
also robbed by the earthquakes of her job as a nanny, sought
treatment for the onset of chest pain.
“I thought it was my heart that was sick,” Reyes, 41, said after
being diagnosed and receiving medication. “But it’s a nerve that
became inflamed after the screams that day.”
Armando Denegri, representative in Venezuela of the Pan-American
Health Organization told reporters Thursday that “50% of the health
professionals in La Guaira were directly affected" by the
earthquakes.
"Some disappeared, some died, others were severely affected by the
crisis, impacting their families,” Denegri said without giving
further details.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has estimated
direct physical damage to housing and infrastructure around $37
billion.
The widespread presence of nongovernmental organizations in the
country and the freedom with which the government is allowing them
to operate contrasts with the repression and persecution to which
they were subjected in recent years. While Rodríguez served as vice
president to former President Nicolás Maduro, organizations were
repeatedly accused of anti-government activities and the U.N. local
human rights office expelled.
“When you have a crisis of this magnitude, people put the politics
to one side and are able to focus on saving as many lives as
possible, and that’s what I’m seeing so far in this response,”
Fletcher said.
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