Venezuelan shopkeepers fortify their businesses amid hungry and violent looting!
CARACAS, Venezuela (PNN) - April 28, 2017 - The thick steel door with welded reinforced plates being installed at Yadira Castro’s small shop seems like it might be more appropriate for a prison or a bank.
But after looters recently rampaged through her neighborhood, pried her door open, and emptied her store of snacks, bread and cigarettes, what might be seen as overkill anywhere else is the reality of being a Caracas merchant. “What I built over two decades, an entire life, was destroyed in a day,” she said.
Venezuela is in the grips of month long anti-government protests that have left more than two dozen dead, hundreds injured, and more than 1,500 people detained. But the demonstrations are also leaving a trail of property destruction in a country that’s already staggering amid a deep economic crisis.
In the chaos of the demonstrations, dozens of stores, mom-and-pop shops, and cargo trucks have been looted by crowds, sometimes driven by hunger. Of the 28 deaths being attributed to the protests, almost a dozen seem to be directly related to the brazen thefts.
