Venezuela pleads for UN help as medicines run low

CARACAS Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has asked the United Nations for ‘‘help’’ boosting the country’s supplies of medicines as he struggles to combat crippling shortages.

‘‘I’ve asked for support from the UN to help treat economic and social injuries that have hit our people, caused by the economic war and the sharp fall in petroleum prices,’’ Maduro said in a televised appearance yesterday.

He didn’t provide any details about the request except to say that the UN had the expertise to normalise the supply and distribution of pharmaceutical drugs in the country.

But just acknowledging that Venezuela needs outside help is a telling sign of how far the nation with the world’s largest petroleum reserves has fallen under Maduro.

Maduro’s socialist administration prides itself on being a provider of humanitarian aid to GETTY IMAGES poor nations around the world. Even as he called for the UN’s assistance, the military was dis- patching two cargo planes of emergency supplies, including some medicines, to Peru for victims that nation’s worst flooding in two decades.

Opponents say such generosity should be reserved for Venezuelans, who have been suffering from widespread shortages and triple-digit inflation since Maduro was elected in 2013, following the death from cancer of former president and Maduro’s mentor Hugo Chavez.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the UN about the Venezuelan request.

The Washington, DC-based Organisation of American States (OAS) announced yesterday that it would hold an extraordinary meeting this week to address the situation in Venezuela.

The announcement came a day after the United States and group of 13 other nations in the region called on Venezuela’s government to hold elections and immediately free political prisoners.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro is pushing to expel Maduro’s government from the group for breaking the country’s democratic order and violating human rights.

Maduro’s government ignored a landslide loss to the opposition in legislative elections in 2015, then suspended a recall campaign seeking to force him from office before the 2018 election.

Venezuela’s government has accused the OAS leader of overstepping his authority in an effort to pave the way for an ‘‘international intervention’’ in Venezuela. AP

A Venezuelan woman buys items from a pharmacy in neighbouring Colombia. A dire economic crisis has seen thousands of Venezuelans cross the border each day to buy food, medicine and other desperately needed supplies.