In March 2017, violent protests erupted across the country in response to a Supreme Court decision to strip the legislative branch of its powers. Amid an international outcry, President Nicolas Maduro reversed the decision, but it was too late. Thousands continued to take to the streets, calling for new elections. More than 100 people were killed in clashes with security forces.

The violence added to the ongoing economic and political crisis in Venezuela. Many Venezuelans spend more than 30 hours a week waiting in lines to shop, and are often confronted with empty shelves when they finally enter a store. President Maduro blames the crisis on US price speculation. The opposition, however, accuses the Socialist government of economic mismanagement.

The crisis has even affected health care in the oil-rich nation. Venezuelans often head to Colombia to collect medical supplies to send home, as seen in this picture. Hospitals across Venezuela have compared conditions to those seen only in war zones. As patient deaths rise, health officials have sounded the alarm on the rise of malaria and dengue fever.

By July 2017, Venezuela's pro-government Constituent Assembly was established. For observers, it had all the hallmarks of a power grab. The new body adopted the authority to pass legislation on a range of issues, effectively taking away the powers of Venezuela's elected congress, which was under the opposition's control. The move drew wide international condemnation.

In response to the political crisis, the United States and European Union imposed a series of sanctions against ruling officials. The US blacklisted members of the Constituent Assembly and froze all of Maduro's assets that are subject to US jurisdiction. The EU banned arms sales to the country.

In October 2017, Venezuela held two votes: regional elections and elections for governors, which were long overdue. The opposition boycotted the vote, but then split, as some candidates and small parties chose to participate. This caused a deep rift within Maduro's opponents. The government went on to sweep the vote, which detractors say was unfair and heavily favored the regime.

In November 2017, the oil-rich, cash-poor nation faced its day of reckoning. Credit ratings agencies declared Venezuela and its state-run oil company in "selective default." But Russia offered to restructure the South American country's debt to ensure Caracas pays its other creditors. US and EU sanctions, however, limited the chance of an agreement.

The National Assembly announced in January 2018 that it would grant Maduro's call for snap presidential elections. The electoral authority, CNE, held the elections on May 20. The EU, the US and 14 Latin American nations warned that they would not recognize the results. The mainstream MUD opposition alliance boycotted the vote, leaving only one possible outcome.

Maduro was re-elected to a second six-year term with about 68 percent of the vote. Turnout was only 46 percent, according to electoral authorities. However, the MUD opposition alliance put turnout at less than 30 percent. The Organization of American States (OAS) called the elections neither free nor fair.

But weeks into the new year, the situation took a drastic turn. On January 23, 2019, parliament president Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela — a move that was quickly recognized by US President Donald Trump. Maduro called it a US-backed "coup." Days later, the US sanctioned Venezuela's state oil firm, while Guaido staked his claim on the country's foreign assets.

There is a bloody mafia war raging for control of the unlicensed gold mines in the Venezuelan state of Bolivar. Miners get killed regularly, their bodies mutilated or riddled with bullets. They have flocked to this region as President Nicolas Maduro's Socialist government has struggled with a three-year recession, spiraling inflation and food shortages.

A worker descends into an underground mine on the bank of a river in El Callao. It is believed, that 90 percent of the gold produced in the South American nation comes from illegal mines. In a country where a crushing economic crisis has fueled an epidemic of violent crime, such mines are "primarily in mafia hands," says Venezuelan Mining Chamber head Luis Rojas.

A narrow mine shaft is filled with water and the smell of gases. The handmade wood supports to prevent a collapse look precarious at best. But Ender Moreno is unfazed. At 18 years old, he has already been doing this job for eight years. "I'm not afraid," he says as he climbs through the pitch black, his headlamp lighting the way through the hazardous maze 30 meters (100 feet) underground.

Ender knows three young men who were killed in his neighborhood. "They were miners, but they started running around with gangsters." A while ago, his boss at the mine was killed because he refused to let mobsters take over the business. Two months before that, 28 workers were massacred at a nearby mine, in what authorities called a turf war between rival gangs.

A miner shows a gold-mercury amalgam he found prospecting. At the nearby Nacupay gold mine, workers dig the earth from the bed of a contaminated river as others pour mercury into pans of extracted sediment. The open-pit mine is known as one of the most violent and polluting in the region.

Ender looks for gold in an open pit. After returning back to the surface, he contemplates his future during a short break. "My mom says this is no kind of life. But I can't stop because I need the money to help her," the teenage miner says. Workers make somewhere between 260,000 and one million bolivars a month ($95 to $360 or €88 to €334) - which, they point out, is far higher than minimum wage.

Venezuela was the first nation worldwide to eradicate malaria in its most populated areas, even preceding the United States in 1961. However, the situation now has changed for the worse, as the country has reported an increase in the incidence of malaria cases every year since 2008. The state of Bolivar accounts for the majority of these cases.

Each day 30,000 to 40,000 people cross the 315-meter-long (1,000-foot-long) Simon Bolivar bridge (pictured) between Venezuela and Colombia. Since September 2015 some 20 million Venezuelans have crossed into the neighboring Colombian province of Norte de Santander, says its governor William Villamizar. At the same time, he adds, 17 million individuals have been registered as entering Venezuela.

Most Venezuelans come to Colombia to stock up on basic food stuff and medicine. It is cheaper there than in their own country, where inflation has spiraled out of control and made the Bolivar, Venezuela's currency, nearly worthless. Some 3 million citizens are thought to have permanently migrated to Colombia.

Colombians initially welcomed fleeing Venezuelans with open arms, just like Germans welcomed refugees in summer 2015. But now, experts say, the mood has shifted. Many have begun demanding the government provide less financial support to refugees and instead invest more in helping ordinary Colombians. However, aid for refugees is still provided in reception centers (above).

According to official figures, approximately 1 million Venezuelan nationals currently reside in Colombia. Given that a total of 3 million Venezuelans crossed into Colombia, about 2 million must have traveled onward. In the first half of 2018 alone, over 500,000 of them migrated to Colombia's southern neighbor Ecuador.

Ecuadorian authorities estimate that only 20 percent of Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the country in 2018 permanently settled there, like this family living in a makeshift camp near the capital, Quito. Most Venezuelans presumably intend to keep on traveling southward and reach either Peru, Chile or Argentina.

After several days when some 5,000 Venezuelans wanted to cross from Colombia into Ecuador, Quito began demanding that Venezuelan nationals show valid passports to emigrate, rather than just an ID as was previously needed. This new regulation applies to adults. For children, proof of paternity and parental passports is enough to let them cross the border.

After Ecuador Peru followed suit, announcing it would implement the same regulation in the near future. Peruvian Interior Minister Mauro Medina said that about 80 percent of Venezuelan refugees arrive with valid passports, but many Venezuelan NGOs warn that passports have now become luxury items in the crisis-stricken country, requiring large sums of cash or high-level contacts to acquire one.

More than 100,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Brazil since 2016, most of them to the country's north. From there, roughly half them travel onward to Ecuador and Peru. The situation in northern Brazil is tense: The country's government has said it will redistribute Venezuelan immigrants to other regions. Critics have accused the government authorities of failing to support Brazil's border region.

Last weekend, local residents in the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima attacked makeshift camps housing Venezuelan refugees. They set their dwellings on fire and drove hundreds back across the border. Media reports say Brazilian police did nothing to stop the mob violence. The attack was said to be triggered by the robbery of a Brazilian businessman — a crime allegedly committed by refugees.