Marina lived in a remote community, deep in the jungle of Delta Amacuro. A three-month trip to Tucupita, the capital city, made her grow into an adult at the early age of 14. When she came back to her community, she started seeing a man she didn’t know, got pregnant and, four months later, went on a trip to the neighboring island of Trinidad.

A granddaughter who dreams of her. An illusion that prolongs life. Mary Lía Aristimuño died of blood cancer at the Manuel Núñez Tovar Hospital in Maturín. It happened one day in 2016, at a time when the healthcare center was already facing major shortages. Her sister Liamir was by her side during the most difficult hours. This is her testimony…

On April 30, 2019, Samuel Enrique Méndez took out to the streets of La Victoria, in the state of Aragua, along with his classmates, to protest against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Armed police and civilians dissolved the demonstration with gunshots and arrested the young protesters that they spotted on their way. Samuel was one amongst them.

Rogelio Peña turned his farm Santa Rita, in the Obispos municipality of Barinas, into a prosperous property where more than 3,000 cattle gazed and about 1 million kilos of corn and sorghum were produced on an annual basis. But in 2003, the lands were declared fallow by the Office of the State Attorney General.

On a plot of land between the ‘José Antonio Anzoátegui’ International Airport, an important tourist complex and Jose’s cryogenic plant, there is a village called Las Bateas de Maurica, known to all as ‘La ciudad de los Mochos’ [TN]. Right there, in that postcard from failure, lives Germán with his wife and their 12 children in a house with no doors or windows.

One fine day in 2006, Renzo Salinas was invited to receive training to defend the “process” led by Hugo Chávez. It was four months of training by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in a clandestine camp deep into the bowels of the state of Barinas. Thirteen years later, scarred by disappointment, Salinas tells of about his experience and…

Harold Añez and Yerwins Elías were two teenage baseball players who dreamed of being great. Their families supported them but could not afford to pay for their trip to Colombia, where they had been admitted by an academy that would further improve their skills. While they raised the funds for the trip, they continued with their trainings in Falcón, in central-western Venezuela.

Carmelo Gallardo is one of 11 physicians who were arrested during protests staged by citizens in Venezuela on April 30, 2019. A hematologist and head of the Blood Bank of the Maracay Central Hospital, a healthcare facility located in the central state of Aragua, he was charged with the crimes of resistance to authority…

Antonio José Valbuena is a schizophrenia patient who, due to the shortage of medicines affecting Venezuela, was forced to interrupt the treatment that kept him stable. The sight of his father on the verge of death caused him a shock that probably made him lose his memory.

The widespread blackout that began in Venezuela on March 7, 2019, lasted longer in Maracaibo than in any other city in the country. Some areas went for days on without electricity in scorching temperatures of over 86º F and with power cuts that continue even today. To survive those exhausting hours when everything…