Tens Of Thousands Continue To Flee Venezuela

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro poses for a picture with new elected governors after a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela October 17, 2017. The placard reads, "Popular victory, 54%, we are joy, we are majority". REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

L.A. Times: Driven by unrest and violence, Venezuelans are fleeing their country by the thousands

As Ana Linares ambled around Lima’s sprawling and historic Plaza San Martin, holding aloft a tray of pastries, her shouts pierced the rush hour traffic roar: “Donuts, fresh donuts!!” She earns about $15 a day — more than she made in a month in her native Venezuela.

“It’s enough to live on and even send a little cash back to my family in Barquisimeto,” Linares said between sales. She buys the pastries from a Venezuelan neighbor and hustles downtown to the plaza. “I don’t leave until I’ve sold them all.”

Linares arrived in Lima last May after enduring a six-day bus trip from central Venezuela, her 8-month-old son on her lap, to join her husband who came months before. Life in Venezuela had become intolerable, with millions struggling with hyperinflation, food shortages, lack of work and lawlessness.

“Everything there has turned ugly. There’s hunger and crime. You can’t leave your house after 5 p.m. because you’re going to be robbed or killed,” Linares said, adding that she now earns enough to afford three meals a day, an impossibility for many these days in Venezuela.

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WNU Editor: In another sign on how insane the situation has become in Venezuela .... Venezuela Maduro warns of repeat elections in states won by opposition (Reuters).

Update: Here is a sweet explanation on how corrupt the election process has become in Venezuela, a country where 93 per cent of the people now say they can’t afford to buy enough food for their family .... Venezuela’s democracy is fake, but the government’s election win was real (Francisco Toro, Gulf News).