Crisis in Bolivia: Desperate citizens try to supply food, increasingly expensive | PHOTOS

The Economic crisis in Bolivia, caused by the shortage of dollars and excessive public spendingimpoverish from last year to the population.

One of its most visible effects is inflation, which in May was 18.4% year -on -year, the highest in at least 17 years.

Irritated customers increase the employees of the state agency for the lack of products and hit the metal doors as a protest. Gisela Vargas, 30, regrets: “There is no rice, sugar, egg, there is nothing anymore.”

The crisis has aggravated more in recent days, with the road blockages promoted by the supporters of former president Evo Morales, prevented from being a presidential candidate in the August elections.

Protesters demand the resignation of the current president Luis Arce. They obstruct the passage of food cargoes and other essential products through neuralgic routes in Bolivia. His clashes with the police have left four troops and a civil civilian.

In Rocío Pérez’s house, A 65 -year -old retiree who lives with their children and grandchildren, have already begun to rationalize your purchases.

Evo Morales says that this week is “decisive” in his dispute against the “Empire” and Trump in Bolivia

“We never thought that this situation could reach this limit, where we have to queue for food or toilet paper. We are on the edge of the precipice,” he tells AFP while waiting for his turn in another government store.

– “I feel helpless” –

“In terms of purchasing power, wages are deteriorating very strongly” with inflation, explains José Luis Evia, economist and former member of the Board of the Central Bank of Bolivia, where the Bolivian, the local currency, is worth less and less.

In recent years, The fall in gas exports have generated a lower income of dollars to Bolivia. The government needs them to import fuels at an international price and sell them subsidized in the domestic market. He has almost exhausted his liquid international reserves.

In La Garita de Lima, a busy Commercial Zone Paz, a truck download chickens in a wholesale position. Hundreds of Bolivians are formed in long rows, impatient and tense.

Months ago, The kilo of chicken cost the equivalent of 2.6 dollars. Today is 5.

Francisca Flores, 69 -year -old street vendor, says she is no longer enough to buy this protein as before. Now eat tortillas and other egg -based meals.

“I feel helpless (…). With my little one I leave (…) and if I can’t” buy the food “nothing, I leave, I endure,” he says.

A national survey of March of the Ponterra consultant indicated that 89% of Bolivians wanted a “very different direction” to that taken by the Arce government. His main concern was the increase in the cost of living.

“I would like this government to go once, to think about people,” says Flores.

For Evia, social discomfort can be a determining factor for the left, that Gworked for almost two decadeslose power in the next presidential elections.

“People are seeing that the country cannot follow this direction and there is a greater consensus for a change,” he says.

Imported products are also among those that have raised the most price for the increase in the dollar in the parallel market.

Griselda Ventura’s diabetic mother, 27, had to enter a hospital in La Paz Because in Chulumani, a town 115 kilometers to the east where he lived, they no longer found the imported medications he needs.

And although it is assured and should receive its treatment at no cost of public health insurance, it now has to resort to private pharmacies, where some of its pills have doubled its price. The hospital is shortages.

“There is not a syringe“There, says Ventura, on the outskirts of the health center.