As lockdown hurts, desperate Venezuelans turn to cow blood soup

Since Venezuela went into its coronavirus lockdown, dozens of needy people have been lining up at a slaughterhouse in the western town of San Cristobal to pick up the only protein they can find for free: cattle blood.

Mechanic Aleyair Romero, 20, goes twice a week. He lost his job at a local garage and says boxes of subsidized food from the government of President Nicolas Maduro arrive too slowly.

“I have to find food however I can,” said Romero, holding a coffee thermos dripping with blood the slaughterhouse gives away.

Though cow’s blood is a traditional ingredient for “pichon” soup in the Venezuelan Andes and neighboring Colombia, more people have been seeking it out since the COVID-19 crisis.

In a proudly carnivorous nation, few are happy about eating more blood instead of meat – a kilo of which costs about two times the monthly minimum wage.

Increased consumption of cattle blood is, like stripped mango trees, a striking symbol of hunger as Venezuela’s economy, already suffering six years of hyperinflationary implosion, has been nearly shuttered in response to the pandemic.

Though numbers of reported deaths and cases from the virus appear modest, Venezuelans are suffering from the economic shutdown and delays in the state food distribution program known as CLAP, for years the most important source of food for many.

The situation is hitting the provinces hardest because distribution is tilted toward major cities including Caracas, according to nutrition-focused charity Citizenry in Action.

The government has for years given the capital priority access to services including water and power.

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In Caracas, 26.5% of families receive CLAP boxes, compared with only 4% of families in areas such as “Los Llanos” (The Plains) region, Citizenry in Action says.A worker delivers cow’s blood to people outside a slaughterhouse during the nationwide quarantine as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues, in San Cristobal, Venezuela May 13, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramirez

“It’s not the virus that’s going to kill them, it’s hunger,” said Edison Arciniegas, director of the group.

Even before COVID-19, the United Nations called Venezuela one of the world’s 10 worst humanitarian crises in 2019, noting that 9.3 million of the 30 million population consume insufficient quantities of food.

Some 5 million people have migrated as a result, it says. (Reuters)