Venezuela’s misery doesn’t even spare the dead in Maracaibo

Thieves have broken into some of the vaults and coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments and sometimes items from corpses as the country sinks to new depths of deprivation.

People greet their loved ones boarding a plane at the airport in Maracaibo, Venezuela, May 25, 2019. Maracaibo is close to the border with Colombia, host to more than one-quarter of Venezuelan migrants.

Even the dead aren’t safe in Maracaibo, a sweltering, suffering city in Venezuela.

Thieves have broken into some of the vaults and coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments and sometimes items from corpses as the country sinks to new depths of deprivation.

Cemetery director Josş Antonio Ferrer says “starting eight months ago, they even took the gold teeth of the dead.”

Much of Venezuela is in a state of decay and abandonment, brought on by shortages of things that people need the most- cash, food, water, medicine, gasoline. Some of the most acute misery plays out on the streets of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city and a hub of the once-booming oil industry. It was here in March that residents looted hundreds of buildings and businesses.