Hospitals lacking medicines and equipment. Daily power outages. At least 8 million people in need of humanitarian support. These were the realities in Venezuela before it was hit by back-to-back earthquakes on June 24.
Venezuela has been in the midst of what experts describe as a complex humanitarian emergency for years.
Democratic backsliding, corruption, inflation and economic sanctions have left its people without access to basic services. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country in the past decade, one of the largest displacement crises in the world, according to the United Nations.
Venezuela has experienced "the sustained collapse of a society," said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst for International Crisis Group who has lived in Venezuela for decades. And now it's reeling from the devastation of one of its worst natural disasters.
In the week since consecutive 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, civilians have sometimes dug through rubble with their bare hands and begged for the government's help.
