Venezuela Poverty
People in Venezuela are lacking of basic food and household items. The oil-dependent nation faces severe food and medicine shortages, school closures and a cut in electricity production which has led to a dramatically shortened workweek for public sector employees. Photo: RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images

Venezuela is facing a deep economic recession that has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis. The South American nation's crisis is so high, that Venezuelans must search for food in the garbage, but when trash cans are empty some of them have to do the unthinkable.

A viral video has resurged with a poor and desperate woman who had to catch and kill a cat in order to survive. The video shows the woman cutting the animal with a small sharp object. The event, published by El Nacional, was in Río Chico, in the state of Miranda.

People who watched the woman blamed the national government for keeping Venezuelans without food. "While you eat that there, Hector Rodriguez [a politician] eats at Eurobuilding," one of the viewers says about the woman.

Watch the video below:

Food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and a plummeting currency are just a few issues that caused Venezuela to become a "Failing State." The country's current poverty is due oil, the same thing that made it rich. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, being the U.S. its biggest customer.

Former President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, controlled oil profits. Chavez allegedly used all the money in education, health care and employment, but all that spending left Venezuela in recession.

Protests against current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, have brought thousands to the streets demanding elections, but has also left dozens of people dead, in addition to hundreds of people injured and about 800 detained, according to an official toll.

The opposition of the new goverment is brutally repressed with bullets, water tanks, pepper spray and tear gas by the Venezuelan riot police, while Maduro plans to rewrite the Constitution of the country

U.S President Donald Trump sent a letter in which he described Nicolas Maduro as "bad leader," and threatened to eliminate economic support to the South American country if Maduro continues with his plan.

According to CNN, economic sanctions on Venezuela would have a devastating impact, because not only does the Nation have the world's largest oil reserves, the U.S. is its biggest customer. A Latin America economist told CNN that if Trump takes actions against Maduro, Venezuela's humanitarian crisis will be worse.

"There have been U.S. sanctions on Venezuela but they were just targeted at certain individuals with asset freezes and stopping them from going to the U.S., rather than sanctions on oil exports which would be much more explosive," said economist Edward Glossop.

In September 2017, Trump issued a new proclamation restricting citizens of eight countries from entering the U.S., including Venezuela. The new travel ban affects Venezuelan government officials "who are responsible for identified deficiencies," with the exception of officials from five Venezuelan security agencies and their families entering the US.

According to the Trump government, Venezuela "did not cooperate to verify whether its citizens pose threats of national security or public safety" and did not share anti-terrorist information. Trump also stated that Venezuela was not cooperating fully with the deportations of its US citizens.

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