VENEZUELA INDIGENOUS DAY – Venezuela’s largest indigenous group struggles against poverty, neglect

Some of the Wayuu indigenous inhabitants of San Vicente de Mapuey, a community of northwestern Venezuela, make a living from salt mining, while others depend on the sale of yucca and handicrafts.

But all of the inhabitants of that community, as well as others to the west of the oil city of Maracaibo, feel they have been neglected by the Venezuelan authorities, whom they accuse of failing to provide basic services such as potable water, health care, electricity, public transportation and cooking gas.