WATCH: Venezuelan Man’s Desperate Plea To Maltese Influencers: ‘People Are Dying Of Hunger Over Here’
He’s far away from home, but Malta resident Francisco can clearly feel the pain that people in his home country of Venezuela are passing through as they enter their fifth straight day without electricity.
In an emotional series of Instagram videos, Francisco urged some of Malta’s most popular influencers, such as Ira Losco, Sarah Zerafa, Owen Leullen, Tamara Webb and Rowen Muscat, to spread the word about what’s going on in Venezuela.
“I’ve been trying to talk to my mum but it’s almost impossible because they keep disconnecting everything,” he said.
“People are dying in hospitals, dying of hunger; it’s unbelievable that all of this is happening in a country as rich as Venezuela. Please help me spread the word because I don’t have the words to describe what’s happening there.”
He posted a video of a tearful Venezuelan woman whose daughter had died in her arms because hospitals were unable to treat her without power or medical supplies.
“Imagine that was you, imagine your daughter was dying in your arms and no one could help you… this cannot go on,” he said. “My family is sending food to hospitals, and yesterday they fixed a hospital generator. They’re doing all they can with the little bit of money they have left because everything has been broken in the country. Please, we need a bit of help until this ends.”
Venezuela has been flung into a political crisis this year after the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared that President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election was invalid and that Opposition leader Juan Guaido was the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The United States, the EU, the UK, and several Western and Latin American countries, including Malta, have officially recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s leader, but Russia and China have stood behind Maduro.
On Thursday afternoon, the state of crisis deepened when a power outrage hit virtually the entire country and the South American country has remained without electricity since then. Maduro has blamed the blackout on a US-backed “electricity war” designed to topple him and replace him with a “puppet” but Guaido has pinned the blame on his political rival for failing to restore power.
Cover photo: Right: BBC