Before I dive into my intended topic, I want to update you on a different but related matter. A few days ago, I wrote about a woman named Dr. Marggie Orozco, who is a political prisoner in Venezuela. A small-town doctor beloved by her town and respected by the medical community at large, Orozco is 65 years old and has a heart condition. She's suffered two heart attacks — one before her imprisonment and one shortly after she was jailed last August.
In that article, I explained why she was arrested. She'd left a voice message on Whatsapp for her neighbors, imploring them to vote against Nicolás Maduro during the presidential election last July. We now reportedly have audio of the message that got her arrested. This is what she said (translated from Spanish):
I don't know. I don't know how long we're going to have to keep enduring this Maduro dictatorship that's starving all Venezuelans to death, my God! There's no more food, no more medicine, every day gets harder and it feels like nobody's listening. Please, someone do something.
I know most of you don't speak Spanish, but I'm going to embed the recording anyway because you can hear the desperation in her voice. This is what it's like for many who live in Venezuela under Maduro's narco-terrorist dictatorship.
🇻🇪‼️ | ÚLTIMA HORA — Ya circula el audio de WhatsApp por el que el régimen de Maduro condenó a 30 años de prisión a una mujer venezolana por simplemente expresar su desesperación ante la crisis.
— UHN Plus (@UHN_Plus) November 19, 2025
En la grabación, denuncia que “no hay comida, no hay medicinas” y suplica que… pic.twitter.com/ocFSKGNphR
Related: This Is What Dictatorship Looks Like: The Story of Marggie Orozco
And that brings me to the topic for this article. Dr. Orozco is correct. There is not enough food. There is not enough medicine. That's why 8 million-ish Venezuelans have fled their country. And the most recent numbers suggest that the humanitarian crisis is worse than anyone knew. Entire generations are growing up starving.
According to an Aug. 25 report from Caritas Venezuela, a non-profit organization and one of the few that isn't oppressed by the Maduro regime, "child malnutrition has returned to levels equivalent to the worst years of the collapse," the "collapse" being what happened to the country's economy beginning in the 2010s, specifically around 2013-2014, when Hugo Chávez died and Nicolás Maduro took over.
Today, 9.1% of the children in the country are moderately or severely malnourished, and another 29.5% are either malnourished or on the verge. Nearly half of those cases — 42% — are children under the age of two. Of those, 17.6% are infants under six months old.
The report also studied pregnant and lactating women in the country. Twenty-three percent of pregnancies are in adolescents, and 23% of those girls are at nutritional risk. Overall, 18% of all pregnant or lactating women are at nutritional risk.
Related: Maduro’s Backup Plan? Jesus, Apparently
When it comes to families overall, 54% have had to ask for financial help with food, 59% have suffered food deprivation, and 32% depend on soup kitchens or other handouts to merely have a meal. And a whopping 90% of households lack access to potable water.
But those are just numbers. Let's put a face to them. Back in August, the Associated Press spoke with Alnilys Chirino, a 51-year-old mother of four. She said the only food in her house was "a handful of peppers and wilting herbs, a kilo of rice, half that of beans, a bit of canned meat, some flour." She said she used to worry about the food spoiling too quickly in the heat, but these days, her food doesn't last long enough to go bad.
Chirino gets a government stipend of $4 a month. She also sells linens and accessories, which can earn her up to $70 a month. Every cent goes to food. Most of it is purchased from corner stores where she's able to keep a credit account. Unfortunately, the price of a basic basket of food is $500 in Venezuela. For what it's worth, the AP says that many of the economists who reported this information about the food were detained by the Maduro regime.
Her children became malnourished a decade ago when Venezuela's economy collapsed, and now they're facing the same issue. They wake up with headaches and rarely have protein. Their mother says the last time she was able to purchase fresh meat was in May, and that was just two servings of ground beef. They often skip school because they don't feel well without eating. Chirino's daughter told her that one child at her school fainted recently due to the lack of food. On Sundays, the family attends Mass at their church, which also offers a soup kitchen afterward. Sometimes, her children are too weak to make it. Chirino herself doesn't eat until all of the children at the church, on some days around 70, have had something to eat.
According to the AP, "Maduro’s government typically supplies schools with frozen whole chickens and some combination of arepa flour, rice, pasta, beans, sardines, canned lunch meat, milk powder, lentils, salt and cooking oil. But teachers, cooks and administrators say what they receive is inconsistent and insufficient." Administrators and teachers often ask children to stay home when there is no food. When there is, the children beg for something extra to take home with them.
And it's not just the children. Elderly pensioners must rely on an app called Sistema Patria to receive their monthly stipends, food, and medicine. It also tracks their social and political movements, rewarding loyalty to the regime. You didn't vote for Maduro? You might not get food or your pension that month.
That's pretty sad for the country that was once one of the wealthiest and best-educated democracies in the world, pre-Chávez and Maduro. Over the last decade, under Maduro's rule, the country has undergone several periods of decline. The first was in the mid-2010s due to the major economic, political, and social collapse that I mentioned. That one was bad, and the report suggests that current humanitarian conditions are just as bad as they were then. The pandemic caused another wave of decline, and in more recent years, hyperinflation, a crackdown on humanitarian aid, and a lack of jobs have contributed to the crisis.
But the fact is that none of this will change as long as the country is under the "leadership" of the narco-terrorist socialist Maduro. Here's more from La Gran Aldea:
Therefore, any path to reversing this suffering requires addressing the root of the crisis. As long as a regime persists in Venezuela that destroyed the country's economic foundations, stole public funds during the years of greatest oil prosperity, and operates through mechanisms of violence and control, recovery will be impossible. Humanitarian aid, yes; urgent attention, indispensable. But a sustainable solution will only be viable when the country recovers its institutions, the rule of law, and a minimum of civic freedom—conditions incompatible with the continued existence of the regime that led Venezuela to this tragedy.
Of course, not everyone in Venezuela is starving. The dictator, who earlier this week declared that he has a special relationship with and direct line to Jesus that would stop the United States from taking him down, also debuted his $1,085 Loro Piana shoes during his state TV program. Meanwhile, the average monthly salary in Venezuela is about $237 USD, with many public workers, like nurses, police officers, and teachers, earning much less — around $70 to $100 per month, which is paid via cash and vouchers. Eighty percent of Venezuelans live in poverty, though I've seen reports that suggest that number is even higher. The minimum wage is $3 USD per month.
Rather than report on this, the media largely ignores it in favor of crying over how Donald Trump is blowing up the narcos that leave the country. The Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration's answer was to ease sanctions and attempt years of diplomacy with Maduro that achieved nothing but allowing him to stay in power and continue this tyranny.
On Thursday, opposition leader María Corina Machado re-posted the info from the report on X and promised that it would be the "absolute priority from day one" after Maduro falls and the rightfully elected president Edmundo González takes his place. For the people of Venezuela, that can't come fast enough.
