“n
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) launched an emergency appeal this Tuesday for 50 million dollars to assist some 500,000 people in Venezuela for three months, which was struck on June 24 by a seismic doublet of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 that left nearly two thousand dead and tens of thousands affected. The head of the agency in the country, Stephanie Hochstetter, acknowledged from La Guaira —the most devastated coastal region— that this amount “will not cover the entirety of the disaster.”
n” “nHochstetter appeared via videoconference at the daily press briefing of the UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson. He did so from the human epicenter of the catastrophe: La Guaira, the coastal state north of Caracas where dozens of buildings collapsed and where food shortages, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), are now “widespread.” At the time of his intervention, the official toll from the Venezuelan government recorded at least 1,943 dead and 10,571 injured, figures that continued to rise throughout the day.
n” “nThe official explained that the WFP has already distributed emergency rations to 1,200 people and that the agency currently has 3,000 metric tons of food stored in the country, enough to feed more than 10,000 families for two months. In addition, it is working on local purchases and coordinating with its teams in Colombia for the rapid transfer of additional reserves. The goal is to scale up the response to cover half a million people in the coming months.
n” “nA child sleeps outdoors, in front of houses damaged by the earthquake in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, on Sunday, June 28, 2026
We recommend reading:The miraculous rescue of a 3-year-old child six days after the earthquakes in Venezuela
n” “n“The need for food, clean water, shelter, and basic services is immediate and critical”, stated Hochstetter. The official warned that the earthquakes did not strike a country in normal conditions, but rather one where food vulnerability was already structural. Many affected families “already had difficulty affording basic food,” she pointed out, and now face the simultaneous loss of their homes, their income, and access to basic infrastructure.
The context prior to the disaster aggravates the magnitude of the challenge. According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), at the beginning of 2026 nearly 7.9 million people in Venezuela required humanitarian assistance. The WFP estimated that around four million Venezuelans —approximately 15% of the population— needed urgent food aid, while an additional 40% suffered from moderate food insecurity. The projected inflation for this year exceeds 680%, and the minimum wage has been frozen since 2022 at the equivalent of less than half a dollar per month.
The two earthquakes on June 24, with their epicenter in the state of Yaracuy, constitute one of the most destructive earthquakes recorded in Latin America in decades. NASA calculated damage to more than 58,000 buildings, and the UN estimated the number of missing persons at around 50,000. The hardest-hit areas of La Guaira state—Caraballeda, Catia La Mar, and Tanaguarena—were left without electricity or connectivity for days, and the Simón Bolívar International Airport, in Maiquetía, suspended operations before partially resuming them. The Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, put the number of collapsed buildings at more than 100 in La Guaira alone and indicated that some 70,000 families were affected in that state.
n” “nThe international response was immediate but uneven. The UN released 15 million dollars in emergency funds and deployed more than 2,200 rescuers from 25 countries. The United States announced total assistance exceeding 300 million dollars, including the deployment of marines to rehabilitate the strategic port of La Guaira. UNICEF mobilized 47 tons of humanitarian supplies and estimated that it needs an additional 52 million dollars to care for children. The International Red Cross launched an appeal for 50 million Swiss francs to assist 300,000 people.
n” “nThe WFP’s operational headquarters in La Guaira was requested by the government of acting president Delcy Rodríguez herself, with whom Hochstetter highlighted that there is “full collaboration.” The organization also assists families who have kept their homes but have lost access to basic supplies, distributing food for cooking in addition to ready-to-eat rations. Hochstetter stressed that the response must be sustained beyond the rescue phase: “When the attention fades, the needs do not diminish.”
n” “nVenezuela has been dragging a decade of institutional deterioration, collapse of the health system, and mass emigration of more than eight million people. Superimposed on this substrate of structural weakness is now a seismic disaster whose true scale is still unknown, with thousands of people trapped under the rubble and communities isolated in mountain areas where aid is slow to arrive. The WFP’s appeal is only a fraction of what multilateral organizations estimate the reconstruction will cost.
n”
