Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 28 december 2019
Venezuela's poorest struggle to take care of their dead

By RODRIGO ABD They are on display outside
SCOTT SMITH on the street.
SHEYLA URDANETA The indignities of death
MARACAIBO, Venezuela don't quickly end. Thieves
(AP) — The last time any- often raid graves for valu-
body in Nerio García's fam- ables, while public ceme-
ily heard his voice was on a teries often go abandoned,
crackly call from jail outside overgrown with weeds.
Maracaibo, Venezuela's When families cannot af-
second city. He called from ford headstones for loved
a borrowed cellphone, ones at the Maracaibo
pleading to his brother for public cemetery, each
help. rain storm erases any sign
"Tell Mother to bring me of a fresh grave, making it
some food," García, 29, impossible for them to find
said in the 2 a.m. call, rela- their loved one's plot when
tives later recounted. they return.
Another call from a fellow García's mother described
inmate said García had how she put aside an urge
stolen a gun and escaped, to find justice for her son's
drawing his mother, Juana death and focused rather
Castillo, to the overcrowd- on how she would rescue
ed jail in Cabimas. She was his body and bury it. With
desperate for answers, help at the lake shore, they
but was instead told to go tied him to a tree so he
looking on the shoreline of A man's body lies in a coffin before being cremated at a cemetery Maracaibo, Venezuela, Nov. didn't drift away, and next
nearby Lake Maracaibo. 23, 2019. told police, who pulled the
There, she found him shot Associated Press body from the water and
between the eyes and delivered it to the morgue.
floating in the water. coffins. mete out deadly street jus- stitch together faces of The autopsy showed he
"I'm desperate," Castillo For many in Maracaibo, tice, while too many others those killed in violent clash- was shot in the head and
told The Associated Press, Venezuela's economic die from long, agonizing ill- es with police. He charges also in the back.
while with her son's body crash in the last five years nesses such as AIDS and tu- the equivalent of $5. García had been jailed
at a morgue near the jail. "I hit especially hard. Once a berculosis. She has also wit- "Not everyone can pay for two years following a
want to take my son home center of the nation's vast nessed deaths from malnu- that, so some I've let go for family feud and was ex-
to bury him near me." oil wealth, production un- trition and poisoning from free," Molero said. "What pected to go free just days
While the family may never der two decades of social- people eating garbage in are you going to do if we after being shot in the jail,
know the truth of his death, ist rule has plummeted to a the street. grew up together?" his attorney said. Instead,
the grisly discovery set the fraction of its high, taking "This slum here has turned Leal's contribution stems his mother and siblings set
grief-stricken mother on down residents' standard into a living hell," Leal said. from her former role as a out borrowing money from
a scramble to rescue her of living. "Some bodies were de- socialist party enforcer. She neighbors to cover the fu-
son's body from the water Opposition leader Juan composing at home be- says she has abandoned neral expenses.
and to find enough money Guaidó this year launched cause officials we asked a violent past, but isn't shy They finally brought him
to bury him. a campaign promising to didn't help. It's infuriating." about cajoling officials at home to a poor Maracai-
Death has become an oust President Nicolás Mad- Leal has formed a team the mayor's office to pro- bo neighborhood, where
overwhelming financial uro and return the nation to with two other neighbors vide a burial place. Once, the family lives in a half-
burden for many of Ven- its bygone prosperity. While who employ their unique she pressed her point by built shack made of cin-
ezuela's poorest, who al- the power struggle plays skills to bring dignity to the bringing a coffin to city hall der blocks. It's only partially
ready struggle to find dig- out, millions of Venezuelans dead. One busy month re- until officials found a grave covered by a roof and
nity in life. They scrape remain caught in the mid- cently, Leal said she over- site. lacks glass for the windows.
together food and shelter dle. The poor and wealthy saw 12 funerals. Venezuela's crisis has re- They mourned over the cas-
needed to get through alike in Maracaibo live with Upon learning of a death, shaped the funeral indus- ket, placing a plastic bottle
each day, and a relative's rationed electricity, and carpenter Arturo Vielma try. on the ground, scrawled
death can become the despite the region's abun- visits the mourning family´s Funeral homes in Maracai- with the word "donations."
breaking point. dant oil, they often wait in home, asking what wood- bo said that in the last two Incense burned to mask
The cost of transporting a line for days to gas up their en furniture, like a table or years they have started the smell, and his sisters
body and buying a casket cars. standalone closet, they renting caskets to families took turns shooing away
and burial plot for a funeral Among life's struggles, too can spare for him to build for $50. The family returns flies drawn to the decom-
can run into the hundreds often comes the need to a casket. the casket and sends their posing body.
of dollars, or more. In Ven- provide a relative with a fu- Roberto Molero next comes loved one's body to be cre- At the cemetery, they
ezuela, most earn the mini- neral. to embalm the body with mated, making it dramati- lowered the casket into
mum wage of roughly $3 a Community activist Caro- no training other than see- cally cheaper than buying a donated burial plot. His
month as hyperinflation de- lina Leal has assumed the ing it done during a de- a coffin for $100 to $300. mother, shaky on her legs,
vours pay. role of funeral director in cade that he worked as a Furniture maker Sergio stepped to the grave and
Some overcome the finan- her poor and often violent driver at a funeral home. Morales for years crafted placed inside three small
cial burden of a relative's Maracaibo neighborhood This gives families time to tables, chairs, bed frames loaves of bread and a malt
death by renting caskets, a of Altos de Milagro Norte, mourn and come up with and night dressers, but as drink.
cheaper option than buy- hoping to rid families of un- money while they make fu- Venezuela's crisis deep- She said this was her way of
ing. Others turn to amateur necessary misery she has neral arrangements before ened, he began using the feeding her son, satisfying
morticians, who embalm seen too many times. the body decomposes. same wood, nails and glue the hunger he had cried
bodies at home and con- Leal said police only enter Molero's kit includes a sew- to build simple wooden about in his final call home
vert wooden furniture into when they are coming to ing needle and thread to caskets for less than $100. hours before his death.q