For the fourth consecutive year, the HumVenezuela platform presented the results of its community diagnosis, with information collected between July and November 2024. This is the most comprehensive survey conducted, with coverage in the 24 states of the country and an increase of more than 90% of households surveyed compared to the first sample.
The survey recorded a slight improvement in income, going from US$ 3.4 to US$ 5.7 per day. However, HumVenezuela warns that this slight increase occurred “at the expense of more hours of precarious informal work and risky jobs.” In this regard, it is noted that, although nearly 500,000 people have left the condition of need behind, due to the increase in their family income, these are fragile and changing given the volatility of the national economy, and proof of this has been that “900,000 people fell into severe need”, mainly represented by the intention to migrate, the lack of medical attention for serious health problems and children and adolescents without food at school and home. For this reason, there is a “stagnant crisis”, where the economic data is not sufficient to avoid serious deprivations in other social needs such as food, health, education and security, as well as public services like electricity and gas.
Food remains precarious with seven out of ten Venezuelans having to resort to different strategies to obtain food, although incompletely, since the number of people who remained hungry or who spent entire days without eating increased. In the health field, 49.8% of respondents with serious health problems did not receive medical care in 2024 and 46.7% did not have access to medicines, as a result of an accumulated collapse of the health system that has seen an 80% drop in its capacity over the past 20 years, that is since long before the start of the imposition of generic sanctions.
There was a slight decrease in school dropouts and non-enrolment between 2023 and 2024, but 2.9% of school-age children missed more than 100 days of school and 9.3% between 50 and 100 days. Of those days of attendance, more than 70% of schoolchildren did not have access to the school feeding program.
The survey also recorded an increase in failures in the supply of electricity and piped water. In addition, 55% of respondents must travel on foot due to the transport deficit. In sum, the integrated analysis shows a scale of 19.6 million people with at least one need that was no longer met or could not be met due to the drop in capacity, of which 13.5 million face that the satisfaction of their needs “is in critical condition” and for 5.6 million “the deprivations are severe.”
Faced with this panorama that shows the persistence of a complex humanitarian emergency, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has stated that in Venezuela there have been “notable improvements in several areas, such as the economy, public health and crime,” so it is safe to return. A narrative that has been supported by the president of Panama, according to whom the crisis in Venezuela “has stabilized.” However, the State Department website still lists Venezuela as a Category 4 (Do not travel), suggesting that citizens of that country, if they decide to travel anyway, “should draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or a power of attorney.”
In recent months, political persecution against foreigners has been added to the criminal violence and extortion of officials. According to Maduro himself, there are 150 foreigners in prison, who are described as “mercenaries.” Seven US citizens and two Colombians were released in February. The Colombian Foreign Ministry stated that the detained Colombians “have not been able to access consular assistance” and warned that, in the case of the other detainees, there could be a case of forced disappearance, since the authorities have refused to reveal their whereabouts.
If Venezuela is not safe for Venezuelans, nor for foreigners, it is not safe for deportees either. When referring to deportees, Maduro has again stated that “We do want them to return. If they do not want them over there, we do want them, with love, and we open our arms.” This same statement was made by Maduro in 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that forced some 250,000 Venezuelans to return to the country, only to face a massive campaign against them, led by Maduro and echoed by all the National Guard commands that accused the returnees of being biological weapons and encouraged the population to denounce them. The same speech was heard when the first deportations took place during the Biden administration and then pointed to the deportees as the cause of the post-election protests.
The emergency continues, affecting nationals, foreigners, visitors and deportees alike; even humanitarian workers have been affected by the repression. In this context, it is important that the international community explicitly expresses its support for humanitarian workers who carry out their activities in an increasingly adverse environment. It must also be vigilant in order not to fall into the official narrative, nor to uncritically reproduce the criminalizing and normalizing discourses that the de facto government seeks to impose to reposition itself on the international map.