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Maracaibo is the second most important city in Venezuela. It is in the west of the country, on the shores of the biggest lake in South America. It was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the United States, with the aim of developing the oil industry, and now has two million inhabitants. Up until 2013, the city was very prosperous.

One of the world’s biggest oil reserves is situated under the lake. However the fall of the price of the barrel, along with the absence of diversification of country’s economy, has led to the ruin of the region which, according to the IMF, is experiencing one of the worst crises in the modern world. Inflation in 2018 was estimated at around 13800%. It should be noted that petrol represents 96% of the country’s exports.

The direct result is that the local currency is worth nothing and the gross domestic profit has fallen dramatically. One euro is worth one million bolivars on the black market. The country’s infrastructures are not maintained anymore and the humanitarian crisis is growing: lack of cash, record devaluation, famines, sudden poverty and illness. Already more than two million refugees have fled to the neighbouring countries, especially Colombia.

The elections of May 20th 2018 didn’t change anything. Nicolas Maduro was re-elected with more than 60% of the votes, although many irregularities were noted: votes were bought, the opposition was stifled, voting machines were tampered with, and those living abroad were denied the right to vote, while votes were cast by the dead… The Chavistas may well have stayed in power, but the economy has slowed to such an extent that the country is close to exploding.

Things have also turned for the worst on Lake Maracaibo: the weekly catch of the traditional fishermen has dropped from 1.5 tonnes to 50kg in the space of ten years. As no-one buys their fish anymore, they now have to consume their own fish to live and so have to go out fishing three times more.

Furthermore, the lake has suffered terribly from the lack of maintenance of the oil wells. The 45000km of pipelines under the lake have started to leak, sending thousands of litres of oil into the water every day, thus creating a major ecological disaster. The fishermen are prisoners of the situation, forced to fish in the midst of numerous oil slicks. They have been abandoned by the authorities and run the risk of dying out in the near future…