A decade under Maduro, migration marks Venezuelans’ lives

Few Venezuelans have not had their lives touched by migration over the last decade, when more than 7 million people left the country amid a political, economic and humanitarian crisis that has lasted the entirety of President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
In the 10 years since Venezuelans learned on March 5, 2013, that polarizing President Hugo Chavez was dead and his chosen successor, Maduro, would take over, a drop in oil prices coupled with government mismanagement have sunk the country into an economic tailspin, pushing many people into poverty, hunger, poor health, crime and desperation.
As people continue to migrate, mostly to elsewhere in Latin America, there’s an increasing divide between “los que se quedaron” and “los que se fueron,” those who stayed and those who left.