Seventy percent of Venezuelan prisoners suffer from severe malnutrition

At least 70 percent of prisoners in Venezuela suffer from severe malnutrition due to food shortages and the absence of hygiene and sanitary measures, claimed the NGO Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones (OVP for its name in Spanish) in a report published on Monday.

The document, titled "Malnutrition Report 2021: Hunger plagues the Venezuelan prison population,” is an analysis of the increase in the rate of malnutrition in Venezuela's detention centers.

No prison in the country guarantees a balanced diet with calories and nutrients that would allow prisoners to cope with the conditions of confinement, said the report.

"The food intake in Venezuelan prisons does not correspond to the necessary requirements that any adult should meet to have active defenses and a strengthened immune system to cope with the deplorable conditions of detention in which they remain."

According to the OVP study, 91.5 percent of prisoners do not eat any protein and 90.1 percent do not eat and have not eaten fruits or vegetables during their detention. 

"We learned that 40.1 percent eat once a day, 38 percent eat twice a day and 9.2% never receive food. Only 12.7% reported eating three times a day," the organization said.

The organization claims there are no official figures "regarding the issue of food in prisons," and therefore urged the regime of Nicolás Maduro to release "real" data and percentages regarding Venezuelan prisoners and to develop "a reactivation project for the supply of food in all prison facilities in the country."

The data in the report was collected between 2017 and the first quarter of 2021 in 34 prisons with an emphasis on the states of Miranda, Carabobo, Lara, Nueva Esparta, Aragua, Bolívar, Táchira, Yaracuy, Monagas and Guárico. The report includes testimonies from family members, lawyers and prisoners.

Last November, the same organization reported that more than 600 prisoners in the Andean Region Penitentiary Center (Cepra) went on a hunger strike to protest against the food shortages, lack of medical assistance, and disease outbreaks.