“We don’t have medicines, we don’t have food, but we do have plenty of tear gas bombs," said one of the protesters when interviewed this summer.

Up until August 2017, the people of Venezuela protested on the streets because they can no longer handle the fact that in their country criminal activities kill a person every 18 minutes, that their hospitals are falling apart or that their supermarkets and pharmacies are empty.

If you ask a Venezuelan about their daily routine — how they meet their family needs, what they eat, if they have medicines, how they survive, how they protect themselves and their loved ones — you will encounter a terrible reality. Venezuela is facing an unprecedented social, economic and political collapse that cannot be called anything but a humanitarian crisis.

A humanitarian crisis is a situation that entails a critical threat to the health, safety, security and well-being of a large group of people, such as Venezuela’s case. In October 2016, six months before the protests began, the nonprofit and non-governmental human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, published a report highlighting severe medical and food shortages, along with inadequate government action as indicators of a humanitarian crisis. These indicators, in addition to other economic and political factors, contributed to the outbreak of protests in Venezuela.

Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, is the most dangerous city in the world, a place where death has become more certain than life. In 2016, Venezuela’s homicide rate was the highest in the world: 92 per 100,000 residents. However, despite these numbers, the state has failed to protect its people from widespread violence and crime.

“The current government, rather than fighting against violence, has promoted it by supporting organized criminal bands and armed groups,” a Venezuelan protester I interviewed stated.

From the involvement of Venezuelan officials with drug cartels to a 92 percent rate of impunity for homicides in 2016, there is no doubt that the regime’s incentive to address crime in the country is scant.

The appalling health care situation is another major factor behind the Venezuelan protests. According to Human Rights Watch, by August 2016, 76 percent of hospitals in Venezuela did not have most of the basic medicines that are stipulated for a functional hospital in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Basic vaccines, like the pneumococcal vaccine, have been missing for over year now.

“Shortages of vaccines and the lack of epidemiological prevention measures resulted in an outbreak of diseases that had already been eradicated in Venezuela before, like malaria,” one Venezuelan doctor I interviewed stated.

In the public hospital Ciudad Hospitalaria Enrique Tejera in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, four babies died due to a lack of oxygen supply in the hospital, which was missing because a group of criminals had stolen the pipes that supplied it.

The infant and maternal mortality rates in Venezuela increased exponentially last year and they are still rising. The maternal mortality rate was 130.7 deaths for every 100,000 births between January and May 2016. According to Human Rights Watch this was 79 percent higher than the most recent rate reported by the Venezuelan government in 2009. Now, buying one pack of rice after waiting in line for 7 hours is considered lucky in Venezuela. Most basic products such as rice, flour, milk, eggs and meat are extremely scarce and overpriced. Almost a third of the country’s population eats less than two meals daily. The NGO Caritas reported in April 2017 that at least 54 percent of the children assessed showed some degree of malnutrition. According to the National Poll on Living Conditions ENCOVI, 72 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 8 kilograms in 2016.

The people in Venezuela are aware that just money is not enough to survive. The International Monetary Fund reported in 2017 that Venezuela currently has an inflation rate of 720.5 percent and this rate is prognosed to increase threefold next year. This leaves little hope that severe budget cuts and shortages will end anytime soon.

Additionally, the black dollar is 23,744.63 bolivars per dollar. But for the Venezuelan government, the country’s two official exchange rates are 10.30 and DICOM 11,310 bolivars per dollar. Since Venezuela is a petro state with an economy completely dependent on oil, depression of oil prices in the international market have worsened the situation further.

Almost every day during the recent protests someone died. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 124 people died, with at least 46 deaths at the hands of national forces and 27 by armed groups that support President Maduro. More than 5,000 people were arrested. Neomar Lander, a 17-year-old student, died in a protest in Caracas on June 7 after a tear gas bomb fatally injured his chest.

“National Guards and policemen were using tear gas bombs and any utensils, like pellets, nails, and screws to attack us,” a protester I interviewed proclaimed.

The social, economic and political crisis in Venezuela has clearly gotten out of hand. The government established a National Constitutional Assembly to reform the Constitution against the will of Venezuelans. The election held on July 30 was a fraud. While the electoral council president Tibisay Lucena declared 41.53 percent support for the reform (8,089,320 people), the opposition announced that it was between 2 and 3 million. This discrepancy is worsening the crisis rather than addressing it since the National Consititional Assembly appears as the epitome of the ruling authoritarian regime in Venezuela.

To put pressure on Venezuela’s government, the United States government sanctioned 21 Venezuelan officials, freezing their U.S. assets, banning them from travelling to the U.S. and prohibiting U.S. nationals from doing business with these Venezuelans. On Aug. 25, President Donald Trump issued an executive order placing sanctions that prohibit the purchase of new bonds and stocks issued by the Venezuelan government and the state oil company. Despite the pressure, the government remains in power.

The collapse of the state extends beyond the food and medicine shortages, the fragile economy and the violence. The education sector has fallen apart, numbers of political prisoners are on the rise , corruption levels are high and there is an unequal division of power . Moreover, as a result of the crisis, thousands are fleeing the country, seeking asylum and opportunities abroad. In Panama, 12,756 Venezuelans sought refugee status in the first half of this year. Neighboring countries such as Peru, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile are preparing to receive even more Venezuelans.

The future of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis remains uncertain. This summer more than 100 students — a number that would constitute approximately 10 percent of NYU Abu Dhabi’s student body — were killed fighting for change. Will their loss be in vain?