Hungry mobs ransacked a food collection center, and a supermarket in Venezuela’s western Andean state of Merida on Thursday and reportedly even slaughtered cattle grazing in a field as unrest over food shortages spread through the country. An opposition lawmaker from Merida, Carlos Paparoni, said four people had died and 10 were injured in the chaos over the last two days,
but he did not specify the circumstances. Four years of recession and the world’s highest inflation have plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty, and President Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian socialist regime faces mounting unrest. Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for information about the latest disturbances to rock the nation of 30 million people. READ MORE
