Caracas Chronicles

#NowWhatVenezuela keeps you informed about what’s happening deep inside la patria—from headline-making events to underreported stories that provide the clearest picture of our reality. This digest is published weekly.

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A seized shrimp, a plant in ashes

It wasn’t just Judas who burned on Easter Sunday. One of Venezuela’s most important shrimp processing plants was engulfed in flames: the Antártica C.A. facility in San Francisco del Zulia, owned by the Grupo Lamar conglomerate, the shrim powerhouse expropriated last November after Diosdado Cabello accused its founder, José Enrique Rincón, of conspiring with María Corina Machado to stage a coup.

Videos shared by journalist Jhorman Cruz showed thick black smoke rising from the facility, visible from as far as Maracaibo. The plant is now run by a state-appointed board that also controls three other processing plants, five hatcheries, three feed factories, and around 13,000 hectares of shrimp farms across Zulia and Falcón. An official statement said the fire broke out after “three weeks of preventive and corrective maintenance,” and that all damages were material.

Why it matters: Grupo Lamar was Venezuela’s largest shrimp producer, employing some 10,000 workers. According to BBC Mundo in 2023, the company ramped up its production from 4,000 tons in 2018 to between 50,000 and 60,000 tons in 2023, representing 60–70% of national output, according to Rincón. This boom helped fuel Zulia’s aquaculture industry amidst national economic collapse and government neglect.

U.S. Department of Agriculture data, also quoted by the BBC, show that Venezuela’s fishing industry grew by 219% between 2018 and 2022, contributing $422 million to the national economy in the latter year. The shrimp industry alone accounted for nearly half of that revenue. Speaking at the 2023 Global Shrimp Forum in the Netherlands, Rincón projected annual production could reach 100,000 tons in 2024, The Fish Site then reported. Lake Maracaibo, with its year-round 30°C waters, allows for up to five production cycles annually—compared to just three in Ecuador, the world’s leading shrimp producer.

The blow was already being felt: following the regime’s offensive against Rincón and his companies, Venezuelan shrimp exports to Europe fell 52%, according to seafood industry outlet Undercurrent News.

More information: After the expropriation, the State Administration Board, led by Fisheries Minister Juan Carlos Loyo, announced the export of 2,800 tons to China in December. Venezuela’s main shrimp customer had been the European Union, which had received nearly 80% of exports. At the same time, state media outlet Últimas Noticias reported on December 25 that Lamar was struggling to obtain artemia—an essential input for shrimp farming—and that production had stalled.

Shortly before the seizure, Banca y Negocios noted that the government was looking to open new markets for private companies. In early November, the head of Asoproco (the Western Venezuela Shrimp Producers Association), Fernando Villamizar, said Venezuelan shrimp had captured 14% of China’s market, and that producers were working with the government to negotiate tariff rates to boost sales there.

Now, chavismo appears to be looking elsewhere. “Grupo Lamar represents 75% of Venezuela’s shrimp industry. That gives us the muscle not only to export but to develop a domestic market,” said Prisangel Pérez, Vice President of the State Board, in comments covered by Versión Final in February. Reinaldo Herrera, a regional director for the Fisheries Ministry, echoed that vision, stating that the government aims to ensure shrimp reaches “all social sectors” as part of Maduro’s “seven transformations” plan.

The blow was already being felt: following the regime’s offensive against Rincón and his companies, Venezuelan shrimp exports to Europe fell 52%, according to seafood industry outlet Undercurrent News. During Holy Week, El Pitazo reported that shrimp now sells for $20 per kilo in Caracas, and between $12 and $20 in Zulia.

Correo del Caroní exposes the Warao tragedy

Along the waterways of the Orinoco Delta, the Warao people—one of Venezuela’s most isolated and vulnerable indigenous groups—are enduring one of the country’s harshest humanitarian crises. Two investigative features by Correo del Caroní, part of a special series, chronicle with painful clarity how state neglect has condemned thousands of Waraos to lives of misery, malnutrition, and diseases that should be long gone. In 2025, these are essential reads to grasp the depth of institutional abandonment in Venezuela.

From river living to dumpster diving: For decades, the Waraos lived in symbiosis with the river: farming, fishing, harvesting moriche palms, and navigating in dugout canoes. But that way of life began unraveling with infrastructure projects like the closure of the Mañamo River in the 1960s, which dramatically altered the ecosystem—salinizing water and acidifying soil. Environmental degradation has since worsened due to mining and oil activity, compounded by the failure of development plans under chavismo. In 2005, Hugo Chávez promised a Chinese yam processing plant in a Delta town called Nabasanuka, where unemployment was at 65%. In 2010, a Chinese-backed agro-industrial complex was announced in Tucupita. Neither project ever materialized. By 2016, the facilities were defunct.

With no alternatives, many Warao communities migrated from the Delta to urban centers like Ciudad Guayana, where they survive in dumps, scavenging for recyclables and food scraps. “We eat twice a day when we can (…) Our only source of clean water is a broken pipe at the community entrance,” says Andrea Beria, captain of the Jsanuka community. They live without drinking water, stable electricity, or access to nutritious food.

In 2024, the deaths of 12 children in three Delta communities from what appeared to be severe viral infections shocked humanitarian groups.

Old epidemics, present diseases: The Waraos’ diet—often insects and contaminated leftovers—has severely weakened their health. A 2021 report by Fundación La Salle found that 95% suffer from malnutrition and parasitic infections. Diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, and measles have resurged. Tuberculosis is now the leading cause of death among Waraos, with incidence rates in Delta Amacuro 19 times higher than the national average.

In 2024, the deaths of 12 children in three Delta communities from what appeared to be severe viral infections shocked humanitarian groups. Although the government dispatched a medical team and reactivated the floating Janoko hospital (which sat idle from 2016 to 2021), care remains sporadic. Official data tout outreach programs reaching hundreds of indigenous people, but testimonies in the reports contradict that narrative. Clinics lack supplies, ambulances are nonexistent, and staff are overwhelmed. “They give us a prescription, but if you don’t have money for the meds, you die,” says Beria.

The support system for Indigenous peoples—such as the Indigenous Care and Guidance Service (SAOI)—admits its limitations: no offices, no supplies, no transport, and most critically, no political will. “We have a doctor here,” says a Warao leader in Cambalache, “but she has nothing to work with.”

Recommended reads:

• El Nacional: Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López claims there’s a conspiracy to hand over the Essequibo in exchange for regime change; Diosdado Cabello vows to “defend the territory with our fingernails.”

• Punto de Corte: Provea denounces the forced disappearance of the relatives exiled army lieutenant José Ángel Rodríguez Araña. It includes his parents, aged 51 and 71, after masked and unidentified men raided their home.

• El Pitazo: Prosecutor Tarek William Saab says he will investigate the forced disappearance in the U.S. of Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a migrant detained by ICE who was allegedly being deported to Venezuela, but does not appear on the CECOT inmate list.

• Tal Cual: A study by Fundación Gumilla finds Venezuelans trust the Church’s conciliatory role in the political crisis but criticize certain religious figures for their stances.