Eight months pregnant, Bastardo faced forbidding choices in a nation whose economy has collapsed. Give birth in Venezuela, where newborns are dying at alarming rates in shortage-plagued maternity wards. Or board a crowded smuggler's boat bound for Trinidad, the largest of two islands that make up the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Her husband, Kennier Berra, had landed there in February, found work and beckoned her to join him.Bastardo's mother, Carolina, begged her to stay.
Years of economic mismanagement by the socialist government have crippled the oil-rich nation with hyperinflation, shortages and misery. An estimated 4 million people - about 12% of the populace - have fled the South American country in just the last five years. Since 2016, almost 25,000 Venezuelans have arrived in Trinidad, according to government figures, many without documentation. The United Nations last year estimated 40,000 Venezuelans were living in Trinidad, straining the government's ability to assist them.
Reuters reconstructed Bastardo's ill-fated journey in interviews with her family members, friends and the relatives of others missing from the Ana Maria, along with authorities and people involved in the human smuggling trade.Aranza, sister of Maroly, plays outside their house. The fallout hit El Tigre hard. The swanky hotel closed its doors and Carolina lost her job. Bastardo quit school at age 16 to earn a few dollars a week cutting hair. She and Berra, a construction worker, had two children, Dylan and Victoria.
Infant mortality rose sharply, to 21.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2016 from 15 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008, reversing nearly two decades of progress, according to a study published in January in The Lancet medical journal. Mothers, too, are dying at higher rates during childbirth, the study said. Some 11,466 babies died before their first birthday in 2016, up 30% from the year before, according to the most recent figures from Venezuela's Health Ministry.
There they joined Berra's father, Luis, and his Uncle Antonio, who would also make the trip. The six settled into a rundown hotel above a Chinese restaurant to make final preparations. They hung out with a friend of Luis's, Raymond Acosta, a 37-year-old local mechanic. Another setback followed on April 23: A migrant boat heading for Trinidad with 37 passengers overturned in the Dragon's Mouths. Rescuers found nine survivors and a corpse; the rest remain missing, according to Venezuela's Civil Protection and Disaster Management Authority.
These are the people that the Republicans do not want coming to our nation to find a better life. All while using Venezuela as a lame example of 'Socialism' in modern times. As if.
They, also, are NOT forgotten.
Fleeing the country the United States has put into crisis
Crisis? But Reuters told me socialism was awesome. Why is Venezuela having issues? 🤔
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