 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Venezuela is currently going through a massive crisis, which has crippled the economy and is affecting people's health, diets and livelihoods. The blame for this crisis has been put on the Venezuelan government's mismanagement of the economy, but the main factor responsible, which is usually ignored by the media, is the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies. In this three-part explainer series, we will be looking at the different aspects of the crisis Venezuela is going through, particularly the sanctions that have been imposed on the country and the debilitating impact these have had on the lives of the people. A recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found that sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. have led to around 40,000 deaths in the period between 2017 to 2018 alone. The report says, the sanctions reduce the public's caloric intake, increase disease and mortality for both adults and infants, and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. The exacerbated Venezuela's economic crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans. Venezuela is an oil-rich country and is heavily dependent on oil exports for generating foreign exchange revenue. The country also relies considerably on imports for supplying the people with food, medicines and other essential items. So when U.S. imposed multiple sets of sanctions on the country, the country's ability to provide the citizens with basic necessities was badly hit. Of course, the U.S. is not alone in imposing these sanctions. Canada, members of the European Union and a few other countries have also followed the U.S. lead. The series of sanctions beginning with Obama's executive order in 2015 targeted the Venezuelan government and economy in order to turn the people of Venezuela against the state. Their sole aim has been to create chaos and discontent. Out of the series of executive orders during the Obama and Trump presidencies, the economic sanctions imposed in August 2017 and January this year have had the worst impact. But before getting into the sanctions themselves, let's take a look at the political context in Venezuela in August 2017. From April to July 2017, Karakas and some border areas were shaken by a wave of violent anti-government protests by the Guarembas that aimed at removing Maduro and his government from power. The violent blockades and riots saw unprecedented violence against Shavistas and supporters of the government and at least 126 people lost their lives, though the circumstances of many of these deaths are still unclear. What is clear is that the opposition protests received at the very least massive amounts of political support from the U.S. and according to many financial and tactical support as well. In an effort to quell the violence, Maduro asked the people of Venezuela to choose peace and dialogue over violence and chaos and called for elections for the National Constituent Assembly, scheduled for July 30th, 2017. Maduro's strategy worked. Despite tremendous obstacles, over 8 million people went to the polls and voted for the territorial and sectorial representatives to the National Constituent Assembly. After the massive turnout in these elections, the daily street violence essentially stopped. It was clear that the violent protests had failed to produce a desired result and the people had chosen the path of peace. The U.S. and its allies were forced to make fresh calculations. Several weeks later, the Trump administration announced economic sanctions while the conservative Latin American governments and Canada met to form the Lima Group, a platform with the central focus of stopping Maduro's government. Now let's look at the 2017 sanctions. On August 24th, 2017, Donald Trump issued executive order 13808 that prohibited Venezuela from borrowing in U.S. financial markets. This led to mounting debt as the country was unable to restructure its debt. This also caused a rapid decline in oil production as the country was unable to carry out operations and investments which were required to maintain oil production. So oil production crashed at more than three times the rate of the previous 20 months following this order. In 2017, oil production fell by 11.5 percent and in 2018, it further fell by 30.1 percent. This led to a loss of approximately $8.4 billion in foreign revenue. This directly impacted the country's ability to import food and medicines. In 2013, food imports were estimated to be around $11.2 billion. In 2018, they were only around $2.46 billion. Venezuela had already been going through a period of recession and high inflation prior to the 2017 sanctions mostly due to the fall in oil prices. Now the rapid fall in foreign revenue and drying up of imports pushed the country from high inflation to a hyperinflation mode. Many everyday items became scarce in the regular market causing black market trade to thrive and the cost of those goods to skyrocket. And so the Venezuelan crisis began to worsen day by day making survival in these conditions extremely difficult. But of course these conditions only worsened and became much more severe with the 2019 sanctions. In the next two parts, we will look at the combined impact of the 2019 sanctions and one Guaido's claim to the presidency of Venezuela. We will also look at U.S. efforts over time to establish control and ownership over Latin America's mineral wealth. Stay tuned and thanks for watching.