:00:00. > :00:19.This is what a trip to the supermarket looks like in Venezuela.
:00:20. > :00:24.A lot of people have come up to us to tell us how angry they are
:00:25. > :00:26.because they have been here for over 12 hours and haven't been able to
:00:27. > :00:34.get what they came to buy. This man warns us. They've seen you. And then
:00:35. > :00:40.we are surrounded by soldiers. We are told to stop filming.
:00:41. > :00:59.Welcome to my country, Venezuela. A country of food cues that the
:01:00. > :01:03.government doesn't want us filming. A country in the grip of hunger,
:01:04. > :01:22.where a shopping trip can end in a riot. A crippling economic and
:01:23. > :01:26.political crisis means people living on top of the largest oil reserves
:01:27. > :01:36.in the planets are struggling to find food. I am heading out to the
:01:37. > :01:41.countryside, where I hear the situation is acute. We have barely
:01:42. > :01:49.left Venezuela's capital when we're stopped.
:01:50. > :01:58.There is a roadblock ahead. As soon as we get out of the car people have
:01:59. > :02:05.started shouting and telling us that they're hungry, really. They told me
:02:06. > :02:23.they have been protesting for three days, with no government answer.
:02:24. > :02:34.Their banner is a position to the government for help. -- petition.
:02:35. > :02:36.This is what they say they eat, mangoes that they get from the tree,
:02:37. > :02:46.and that's all. The Venezuelan President Nicolas
:02:47. > :02:51.Maduro faces an economic crisis unlike any Venezuela has seen
:02:52. > :02:54.before. The socialist experiment his predecessor Hugo Chavez began 17
:02:55. > :02:59.years ago is failing, triggering massive food shortages. They left us
:03:00. > :03:15.on our way. I'm travelling across Venezuela to
:03:16. > :03:20.the far west of the country. For me, personally, this will be a difficult
:03:21. > :03:25.journey. Much of my close family still live in Venezuela and it's
:03:26. > :03:33.painful to see hunger in my own country.
:03:34. > :03:43.I visiting the country's second-largest city. I have heard
:03:44. > :03:48.the food crisis is particularly bad. Away from the city, this is a poor
:03:49. > :03:53.region of rural hamlets and fishing villages. For Venezuelans already on
:03:54. > :04:02.the breadline, hunger is now a constant.
:04:03. > :04:37.Everyone knows this woman here. For children, grandchildren and great
:04:38. > :04:43.grandchildren make the upper part of this village. She is barely able to
:04:44. > :04:49.feed them once a day, but there are people even worse off here. These
:04:50. > :04:53.two girls are just asking her and her daughter if they can give them
:04:54. > :04:55.some rice. We are telling them that there is no rice, they haven't got
:04:56. > :05:17.any rice to give. She's going to walk off around the
:05:18. > :05:27.community to show us what people are going through. -- walk us.
:05:28. > :06:46.This man is blind and depends on government food aid.
:06:47. > :06:52.Nearby, this woman said her baby with sugared water. She says she
:06:53. > :07:01.can't produce breastmilk, she is too malnourished. -- said her baby. She
:07:02. > :07:10.was eating three times a day when she took this picture one year ago.
:07:11. > :07:16.Her other children play at cooking. There's a lot of fear here to talk
:07:17. > :07:20.about what's going on, the hunger, the malnutrition. Medics don't want
:07:21. > :07:23.to speak out in the open because they fear losing their jobs and the
:07:24. > :07:28.authorities to let you go inside hospitals to film what is happening.
:07:29. > :07:29.At one of the doctors has said enough is enough and now she wants
:07:30. > :08:33.to talk to us. It is one thing to interview people
:08:34. > :08:38.you've never met before, that tell you how they are facing hunger, but
:08:39. > :08:45.another thing is to talk to your own family and find out the same things.
:08:46. > :08:50.My father, I just met him and he has just lost so much weight. My dad
:08:51. > :09:00.used to be a robust man and now you can see his cheekbones.
:09:01. > :09:25.I am back in the capital, Caracas, to see if things are any better.
:09:26. > :09:30.So, what people are telling us here is there's a lot of hunger. They
:09:31. > :09:31.can't buy the food they need. There's a lot of anger in streets of
:09:32. > :09:40.Caracas. There is some food on sale, but most
:09:41. > :09:45.people can't afford to buy it. Venezuela has the highest inflation
:09:46. > :09:49.in the world and it is hitting the poor the hardest. A worker on the
:09:50. > :09:53.minimum wage would have to work for a year in half to buy one month's
:09:54. > :10:13.food for the family. -- year and a half.
:10:14. > :10:20.To help the poor, the government has put strict pre- inflation controls
:10:21. > :10:24.on key essentials like flour and rice, but there's simply not enough
:10:25. > :10:30.of that to go around. Even in middle-class areas like this, large
:10:31. > :10:36.queues for food have become common. This is an example of how bad things
:10:37. > :10:38.are right now to buy food. That is a supermarket and those queues of
:10:39. > :10:44.people, who have been there since the early hours, they've been told
:10:45. > :10:47.there is flour today. These cues literally go around all of the
:10:48. > :10:51.building, go downstairs into the basement and then come up again
:10:52. > :10:57.until they are finally able to get into the supermarket, hoping to get
:10:58. > :11:03.flour. -- queues. One person told us he had been there until 3am until
:11:04. > :11:07.4pm that day and was only able to get two packs of flour. How did it
:11:08. > :11:20.get to this? Long before the current president of
:11:21. > :11:27.power, Venezuela was the scene of a radical political experiment. These
:11:28. > :11:31.are the slums, where millions of people live all across the country.
:11:32. > :11:38.17 years ago one man promised to change this. His name was Hugo
:11:39. > :11:43.Chavez and his picture is still everywhere in the slums. Politicians
:11:44. > :11:48.had always ignored these neighbourhoods. During Hugo Chavez's
:11:49. > :11:56.14 year rule, he saw profits from higher oil prices into housing and
:11:57. > :12:02.food assistance. Chavez died of cancer three years ago. Before dying
:12:03. > :12:09.he handed power to this man, current president Nicolas Maduro. I watched
:12:10. > :12:20.him host of Venezuela's Independence Day parade.
:12:21. > :12:26.Majuro in heritage child is's socialist experiment, but not behind
:12:27. > :12:33.all the prices that financed his fund, public spending and brought
:12:34. > :12:36.goodwill among his supporters. His popularity has plunged as many
:12:37. > :12:41.Venezuelans blame their hunger on his mismanagement. The government
:12:42. > :12:45.says it's not to blame and that it's the victim of an economic war waged
:12:46. > :12:46.by speculators and even foreign powers intent on regime change in
:12:47. > :13:24.Venezuela. This is where the Venezuelan
:13:25. > :13:27.government shows its military strength with planes, tanks and
:13:28. > :13:28.missile launchers. This is a country in crisis but here they're trying to
:13:29. > :13:42.show that they are still strong. I met this guy might go among this
:13:43. > :13:43.crowd at least he appears to enjoy enthusiastic support despite the
:13:44. > :14:01.food shortages. These taxidrivers have travelled
:14:02. > :14:07.from the far west of the country to show support for Maduro. But support
:14:08. > :14:11.doesn't come completely free. The whole country is reeling from high
:14:12. > :14:16.food prices and there are expecting the government to provide new taxis
:14:17. > :14:30.to help them make a living. No mention of that today.
:14:31. > :14:35.Those people we have just like to, they are the core of the Maduro
:14:36. > :14:39.support, they are the supporters of the president but once we stopped
:14:40. > :14:43.feeling, some of them came up to me to say they are struggling with the
:14:44. > :14:57.crisis and they blame the President. -- filming.
:14:58. > :15:03.So what is the government doing to alleviate people's hunger?
:15:04. > :15:06.I've been given access to a distribution centre.
:15:07. > :15:12.You have to register with the government to collect food here at
:15:13. > :15:14.specific times, although supplies are not regular.
:15:15. > :15:22.This is a government run programme to get cheap food at a fixed price.
:15:23. > :15:29.You've got milk, flour, pasta, cooking oil, but. These are the
:15:30. > :15:34.things that on the black market are sold at a much higher price, almost
:15:35. > :15:37.25% or 30% of the monthly minimum wage.
:15:38. > :15:43.As in any government programme in Venezuela, there's always Maduro
:15:44. > :15:49.Andrade is overseeing everything. It all looks very calm and ordered
:15:50. > :15:51.and today well-stocked. Well, this is a distribution centre at the
:15:52. > :16:03.government has allowed us to film. At another distribution centre in
:16:04. > :16:09.one of the city's largest slums it's a different scene.
:16:10. > :16:17.People do not have access to this in an easy way. All the riot police we
:16:18. > :16:20.have outside of this market is because people get restless,
:16:21. > :16:27.impatient and riots happen quite often. We have to stay in the car
:16:28. > :16:34.and not just to avoid arrest for filming. This neighbourhood is home
:16:35. > :16:37.to pro-government gangs called Colectivos, or collectives. There
:16:38. > :16:41.are armed groups that patrol this area and they don't allow the media
:16:42. > :16:45.to film this because of the big queues, it begs the government, its
:16:46. > :16:49.images and our contracts have identified different people who run
:16:50. > :16:53.it. These are people who are armed, dangerous and they have attacked the
:16:54. > :16:55.media before and that's why we need to stay in the car and look at it
:16:56. > :17:04.from here. The Colectivos are concentrated in
:17:05. > :17:08.the city's poorest and most crime ridden neighbourhoods. Access to
:17:09. > :17:18.them is rare, but a member of one has agreed to meet us.
:17:19. > :17:26.Alejandro grew up in this block of flats. He says collectives aren't
:17:27. > :17:31.folks and they don't deserve their bad reputation. There a community
:17:32. > :17:45.support network that also helps maintain law and order.
:17:46. > :17:50.He says it devastates him to see people queueing for food in the
:17:51. > :17:55.neighbourhoods below, but believes the government is doing all it can
:17:56. > :17:57.and still believes in a political project he says changed the lives of
:17:58. > :18:36.the poor. If there is support for mature
:18:37. > :18:40.anywhere it's in these neighbourhoods. But even if the food
:18:41. > :18:46.crisis and mismanagement is turning people against the government. --
:18:47. > :18:47.Maduro. We pass a line of people waiting to buy from a government
:18:48. > :19:11.food store. Alejandro takes us to meet some
:19:12. > :19:13.people piloting what the government says is a long-term plan to solve
:19:14. > :19:41.the food crisis. The government envisages small urban
:19:42. > :19:44.farms sprouting in between the apartment blocks of Caracas to help
:19:45. > :19:58.make Venezuela self-sufficient in food and even medicine.
:19:59. > :20:15.Urban gardening. Will that feed a country of 30 million people?
:20:16. > :20:20.It's unlikely to help people like this woman and her family, whose
:20:21. > :21:21.children say they are hungry. Coming from here, having lived here
:21:22. > :21:25.a lot of my life, as I come to the end of my time here in Venezuela,
:21:26. > :21:31.the saddest thing I've seen in this country throughout this time is the
:21:32. > :21:38.fact that people have lost the power of deciding when and what to eat. It
:21:39. > :21:45.is such a simple idea, but it is so significant in anyone's life. When
:21:46. > :21:50.you meet people at food queues or at roadblocks where they are protesting
:21:51. > :22:10.to get food, the look in their eyes... There is despair.
:22:11. > :22:19.President Maduro's official term lasts until 2019.
:22:20. > :22:23.An opposition movement is pushing for a referendum to remove him from
:22:24. > :22:31.office early. For now Venezuelans will have to
:22:32. > :22:32.wait in line.