Venezuela is one of the richest countries in the world; it has the largest known oil reserves. Even though there was a crisis, it was still shocking to hear that people were starving to death.

I spent five months going around the country to report the story with Isayen Herrera, a Venezuelan journalist. It was incredibly hard. We had to work with doctors to give us information and put us in contact with families whose babies were dying. We went to babies’ funerals. We photographed young boys who had left home and joined street gangs because they didn’t have food.

Our story comprehensively documented the malnutrition and how difficult it was for Venezuelans to access food. It was on the front page and went completely viral, changing how the world viewed the severity of the crisis.

Have you faced repercussions in Venezuela for your work?

I’ve been detained more times than I can count. I’ve received death threats. I’ve been beaten by soldiers, punched in the face and shot with rubber bullets. When I was covering the massive street protests, soldiers shot me in my bulletproof helmet at close range and I got a concussion.

State television has called me a C.I.A. operative who is trying to destabilize the revolution. Intelligence services have even falsely accused me of stealing babies and harvesting their organs to sell on the black market; they threatened to put me in prison for life for it.

What keeps you in the country after everything you’ve experienced?

The good thing about being in Venezuela for so long is that I have residency. The government has cracked down on the press since the crisis began, so I’m one of the few foreign journalists left in the country.

I feel a moral obligation to stay because I have the perfect trifecta: the legal ability to work here, the resources of The Times to do in-depth stories and a large platform for people to see our reporting.