Human Rights Voices

While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.

Venezuela, October 10, 2016

Prisoners Starve to death in Venezuela’s jails as country’s economy collapses

Original source

Daily Mail

These shocking images show how prisoners are starving to death in Venezuela's jails as food and medicine continues to run out amid economic collapse in the country.

Video smuggled out of a jail at San Juan de los Morros, in the central Guarico region of Venezuela, show emaciated inmates struggling to survive.

With the country in the grip of a crippling economic crisis, starving prisoners can be seen standing in line and begging for help from the outside world.

Venezuela's economy is in a tailspin, with shortages of items from disinfectant to chemotherapy drugs crippling the health sector and leaving 30 million citizens struggling to access basic medical care.

The prison footage was reportedly filmed by inmate Franklin Paul Hernandez Quezad.

One prisoner was said to be so weak he had to be lifted into a chair to be filmed.

One of the men says to the camera: 'Look at me, look at the state we are in, we need medicine in order to survive.'

Another inmate in what appears to be a wheelchair also asks for medicine: 'We are all human beings and we need a second chance.'

And the third echoes the sentiment saying: 'Please, don't leave us to die in here, help us brothers. We do not want to die.'

The person recording the video says: 'The media needs to know what is happening here.'

There are claims in local media that Venezuelan police had apparently blocked deliveries of food, medicine and water to the prison.

The allegations have caused outrage with prisoners' relatives who have asked the authorities to step in.