{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-572d6a42.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-f4d0de30.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Thieves plunder headstones as Venezuela\u0026#39;s crisis turns grave' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54d7dad8eafeecae20f4fb' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54d7dad8eafeecae20f4fb' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nThieves plunder headstones as Venezuela\u0026#39;s crisis turns grave\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eGrief flooded back for Ivonne de Gutierrez when she brought flowers to her son's grave at a cemetery in Venezuela's capital, only to find that the grave markers of several relatives were gone.              The pieces cast with bronze...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eGrief flooded back for Ivonne de Gutierrez when she brought flowers to her son's grave at a cemetery in Venezuela's capital, only to find that the grave markers of several relatives were gone.\u003cbr/\u003e              The pieces cast with bronze letters and religious symbols that identified the graves of a nephew and two aunts had disappeared since her visit a week earlier.\u003cbr/\u003e              \"They had taken all of them,\" Gutierrez said, standing among the vandalized graves at Cemetery of the East, one of Caracas' most cherished final resting places.\u003cbr/\u003e              While thieves have been targeting the capital's necropolises for years, robbing unsuspecting mourners or ransacking tombs for metal objects and even human bones used in occult ceremonies, the crime wave has worsened as the country has been consumed by economic and political crisis.\u003cbr/\u003e              An avalanche of complaints on Twitter and Instagram in late May prompted the cemetery's administrators to acknowledge the surge in stolen plaques and their plan to replace them with a cheaper, plastic material less attractive to thieves.\u003cbr/\u003e              Some inscriptions have been removed, but no replacements have appeared, leaving relatives clueless about whether the grave markers of loved ones have been put in safekeeping or taken away by looters.\u003cbr/\u003e              \"That was early May, and still today we know nothing,\" said Gutierrez.\u003cbr/\u003e              Several people said cemetery administrators have not responded to their inquiries, and they did not respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press.\u003cbr/\u003e              Oil-rich Venezuela was once among Latin America's most prosperous nations. But nearly two decades of socialist rule have thrust it into an economic tailspin with severe shortages of food, medicine and other goods.\u003cbr/\u003e              Runaway inflation has plunged many into poverty, forced to survive on monthly minimum wage that adds up to pennies — or turn to crime.\u003cbr/\u003e              For years, thieves have scavenged in Caracas' streets, cashing in sewer grates and copper telephone wires as scrap metal on the black market.\u003cbr/\u003e              In recent months, robbers have made off with roughly 6,000 headstone markers from the Cemetery of the East, said Nora Bracho, an opposition lawmaker who heads a congressional committee overseeing public services.\u003cbr/\u003e              This is a small percentage of the 200,000 graves in the cemetery, but it has been a nightmare for affected relatives.\u003cbr/\u003e              \"This calamity is a symptom of what we have been living through all these years,\" Bracho said, noting that the living are also afflicted by deteriorating public services including widespread electricity blackouts, shortages of water and a broken-down public transportation system.\u003cbr/\u003e              The Cemetery of the East, perched on terraces overlooking Caracas' high-rises and slums, has long been an oasis from Venezuela's noisy capital. Peregrine falcons and blue-tailed macaws soar through the cemetery's cypress trees.\u003cbr/\u003e              But relatives say the calm they once cherished has been spoiled.\u003cbr/\u003e              Gutierrez said that so far looters have skipped over her son's headstone, located for nearly a decade in a highly visible corner of Cemetery of the East.\u003cbr/\u003e              But a fear it could be vandalized or his remains tampered with for witchcraft has her considering more drastic measures.\u003cbr/\u003e              Yolanda Lezama has watched grave markers go missing one by one on weekly visits to the grave of her daughter, Barbara, who died at age 21 in a traffic accident.\u003cbr/\u003e              \"There is no respect for those who are born, or for those who are living and much less for the ones who die,\" she said.\u003cbr/\u003e            \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003e              ASSOCIATED PRESS\u003cbr/\u003e              Caracas – 1 July 2017\u003cbr/\u003e              1. Various of field inside the East Cementery, covered by graves, some of them without tombstones   \u003cbr/\u003e              2. SOUNDBITE ( Spanish) Ivonne de Gutierrez, mother of a son buried in the cemetery, whose grave was robbed of its tombstone: \u003cbr/\u003e              \"My sister-in-law and I come every week, here are my nephew and my aunts, and we come every week to put flowers, we arrived on a Saturday and we got that the plates were not identifying the deceased, they had taken them, in this whole area (of the cemetery) they had taken all of them.  I did not come that day my sister-in-law came, I was traveling, she went to the cemetery office, it was full of people, she was told to send an email, that was early May, and still today we know nothing. They told her that they were going to put new engraved marble with the people's names.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              ASSOCIATED PRESS\u003cbr/\u003e              Caracas – 24 June 2017\u003cbr/\u003e              3. Tent in the middle of the field, with a sign that reads (Spanish) 'East Cemetery' \u003cbr/\u003e              4. Nidia Guzman, a retired teacher walking in the graveyard accompanied by two men\u003cbr/\u003e              5. Guzman touching a grave\u003cbr/\u003e              6. SOUNDBITE ( Spanish) Ivonne de Gutierrez, mother of a son buried in the cemetery, whose grave was robbed of its tombstone:  \u003cbr/\u003e              \"You come on weekends, to give flowers to the deceased and because there is more crime there are also more robberies.  That alarmed me a lot, that and our relatives graves are not respected anymore.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              ASSOCIATED PRESS\u003cbr/\u003e              Caracas – 06 July 2017\u003cbr/\u003e              7. Nora Bracho, lawmaker, president of the Administration and Services Committee of the National Assembly, having a seat before an interview\u003cbr/\u003e              8. Various of Bracho \u003cbr/\u003e              9. SOUNDBITE ( Spanish ) Nora Bracho, lawmaker, president of the Administration and Services Committee of the National Assembly:\u003cbr/\u003e              \"This is an example of what we are living through in Venezuela and part of the insecurity, part of daily life of what citizens live with in our country. In the Eastern Cemetery, in this case, robberies of gravestones, of bronze gravestones, are present because bronze is sold after being stolen.  Sold from this cemetery, as from many cemeteries of our nation they steal them, steal the headstones to sell to third parties.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              10. Bracho in her office\u003cbr/\u003e              11. SOUNDBITE ( Spanish ) Nora Bracho, lawmaker, president of the Administration and Services Committee of the National Assembly: \u003cbr/\u003e              \"There are approximately 6,000 cases of robberies, robberies there in the Eastern Cemetery, 6,000 people, or rather, the relatives of those people have been affected.  They do not know, many of them, where they are buried, because at the moment they arrive, the tombstone is not in the right place, and well, that causes great discomfort and great confusion for the families that are going to visit their deceased. Really, this calamity is a symptom of what we have been living through all these years in Venezuela, have been 20 years of non-sgovernment, 20 years of crisis.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              ASSOCIATED PRESS\u003cbr/\u003e              Caracas – 24 June 2017\u003cbr/\u003e              12. Various of women walking through the cemetery looking for a grave\u003cbr/\u003e              13. Yolanda Lezama, whose daughter is buried in the cemetery \u003cbr/\u003e              14. SOUNDBITE ( Spanish ) Yolanda Lezama, daughter buried in the East Cemetery:\u003cbr/\u003e              \"Well, a society like this is regrettable because here in Venezuela, here in Venezuela because I am Venezuelan, I am not interested in what is happening in other countries, here in Venezuela there is no respect for those who are born, or for those who are living and much less for the ones who die.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              15. Various of women walking around the graves \u003cbr/\u003e              16. 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