Wall Street Journal: Venezuela Is Starving
“…The Catholic charity Caritas and a team led by Susana Raffalli — a specialist in food emergencies who has worked in Guatemala, Africa, and other regions tormented by hunger — are monitoring conditions here. … Caritas said nearly a fifth of children under age five in [four Venezuelan] communities suffered from chronic malnutrition, which stunts growth and could mark a generation. … By World Health Organization standards, Caritas’s findings constitute a crisis that calls for the government to marshal extraordinary aid. But authorities have resisted offers of food and aid from abroad. The country’s growing malnutrition is made worse by a breakdown in health care, the spread of mosquito-borne illness, and what the Pharmaceutical Federation of Venezuela has called a severe shortage of medicines…” (Forero/Castro, 5/5).