Some basic items such as cooking oil has become a way of life in Bolivia, where anger over shortages and skyrocketing prices has exploded into violence.
Making matters worse: a campaign of roadblocks to protest the crisis has blocked major routes used for the delivery of food and medicine, fueling the scarcity.
“We never thought this situation would reach such an extreme, where we would have to stand in line for food or toilet paper,” a 65-year-old pensioner, Rocio Perez, told AFP at her home in La Paz.
She lives with her children and grandchildren, and the family has taken to rationing what they eat.
“We are staring into the abyss,” said Perez.
At a nearby warehouse selling state-subsidized groceries, 40-year-old Sonia, who did not want to give her surname, queued in extreme cold from 5 a.m. for cooking oil, only to leave empty-handed when stocks ran out some two hours later.
Only those who arrived at 4 a.m. were in luck.
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“I am a single mother, I have to work to support my six children… and on top of that, come and stand in this line. I don’t sleep well anymore,” Sonia, who was clearly angry, said.
Other irate customers banged on the store’s metal doors and shouted at the state employees inside.
“There’s no rice, no sugar, no eggs, there’s nothing left,” exclaimed 30-year-old Gisela Vargas, who also left with nothing.
Bolivia, home to 12 million people and an Indigenous majority, is one of the poorest countries in South America despite sitting on vast mineral resources such as gas and lithium.
In 2023, state oil company YPFB said Bolivia was running out of natural gas – a crucial export product – due to a lack of investment in new exploration.
A dramatic drop in gas exports led foreign currency reserves to plummet, making Bolivia unable to import sufficient fuel for its needs.
Inflation in May was 18.4 percent year-on-year, the highest in nearly two decades, and the local currency, the Boliviano, continues to lose value.
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