87-year-old isabel Dubuc used to sing in a choir, but she doesn't feel safe going out now. "Every day we are more and more like prisoners," she says. With the economic crisis, crime has soared. Caracas is now considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
While the government has stopped publishing crime statistics, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory put the number of violent deaths in the country in 2016 at 28,479. That's 92 per 100,000 people. Big highways that in other capitals would be buzzing at 8pm or 9pm are deserted. Street lighting is intermittent. People finish work and want to get home. "We don't go anywhere," says Caris, the eldest of Isabel's four children. "We only go out to shop, to go to the doctor or to go to work, but there's nothing fun to do," she says.
Caris herself is 66 years old. For 31 years, she worked as an air-traffic controller. She retired a decade ago but realised she had to keep earning money. She studied to become an English teacher and now she works 52 hours a week. Even with a pension, the money didn't stretch. She enjoys teaching but it's not the retirement she had hoped for.
Two of Caris's children have gone to live in Argentina and Chile. She has one son here in Venezuela who lives at home. Caris's siblings also live abroad - the last one left just a few months ago. They are in the UK and the US.
"We used to have everything - a united family, that has slowly disintegrated."
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