'We are hungry!' Food riots rock Venezuela

People gather to buy pasta while riot police try to control the crowd outside a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela

A young woman faints in the heat as hundreds fight for pasta, screaming they are hungry. Slum-dwellers and armed gangs wait for nightfall to hijack food trucks or ransack stores. A mother is shot dead fleeing police after hundreds storm warehouses.
Food riots and violent looting have become a daily occurrence across scarcity-struck Venezuela and a major problem for the struggling leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Despite hours in lines, Venezuelans increasingly find that coveted supplies of subsidised flour and rice run out before they can buy them. Many are skipping meals, getting by on mangoes stripped from trees - or taking matters into their own hands. On a recent morning in the rundown, garbage-strewn Caracas district of El Valle, some 200 people pushed up against police guarding a supermarket as they chanted, "We want food!" and "Loot it!" A few at the front were allowed in for two bags of pasta each.
One young woman fainted in the heat, an elderly lady cried uncontrollably on the sidewalk and the seething crowd chased away a government supporter.
Supermarkets have become flashpoints across Venezuela, one of the world's most violent countries. More than 10 lootings occur every day now, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, and are increasing in the usually more insulated capital.
More than a quarter of the 641 protests last month were for food, according to a tally by the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, a figure that has risen every month this year.
Venezuela's angry streets are arguably a bigger threat for Maduro than the political opposition, which is pushing to remove him via a recall referendum this year. One recent food protest came within blocks of the Miraflores presidential palace. It is a remarkable turnaround for a government which prided itself on social welfare programmes such as Cuban-staffed medical posts and subsidised supermarkets.