People dive in Venezuela’s most polluted river for scrap metal to survive
Written by our Venezuela correspondent
The poorest Venezuelans dive into the polluted Guaire River in search of any piece of metal with which they can help feed their families.Caracas. Ángel Villanueva moved in the murky waters of the Guaire River, a putrid canal that winds through the capital of Venezuela, hoping to find some treasure.
He sank his hands to the bottom of the shallow canal, taking his face away from the foul smell. Then he got up, letting dirt and stones fall between his fingers and looking for an earring nut, lost rings or any other precious piece of metal he could sell to get food. Villanueva, 26, was searching with two other people without losing sight of the dark clouds in the mountains surrounding Caracas.
They could start downloading rain at any time, giving it just a few minutes to get out or die dragged by the water.The images of poor Venezuelans looking for food in the garbage in Caracas have become a symbol of the deep economic crisis in which it was one of the richest countries in Latin America. Less visible are the young people and children who seek in the dirty waters of the Guaire any piece of metal with which they can help feed their families. Sometimes they seem to be playing, without a shirt and laughing in groups. The sun is reflected in their bent backs when they bend over, take out rocks and throw them aside with a splash.
After almost two decades of socialist government, food and oil production has collapsed amid poor management of state resources, and the decline in world crude oil prices has plunged many Venezuelans into despair.Every morning, the junkmen go down to the Guaire from their neighborhoods on the hill. Some wrap their fingertips with tape to protect themselves from cuts and infections, ignoring any possible long-term detrimental effects of spending hours in dirty water every day.
The Inter-American Development Bank intervened in 2012 with a loan of 300 million dollars for an ambitious project to build treatment plants and treat the waste that reaches the river. Almost six years later, the water is still dirty and the cleaning project barely achieved a small part of its objective. IDB representatives declined to comment on the matter and neither have the Venezuelan government leaders ruled on when it could be cleared.
