“Sometimes I want to kill myself,” she said. “I am frustrated, I am out of control, I am fighting with this world. This isn’t my life. My soul splits in two when my kids beg for something — for an ice cream, for a cookie — and I can’t give it to them. The most difficult thing is getting food.”

Víctor Guilarte, 45, a mechanic from a Caracas suburb, said his work had vanished because his neighbors had become so poor they could not afford car repairs. Two weeks ago, he said, he visited his family in another state and found the situation even worse.

“I came back feeling destroyed — they had no food,” he said. “I am tired of Maduro and his government, tired of crime, of hunger, of them telling us we have plenty to eat. I want a referendum, and if there is no referendum, I want him to resign.”

Mr. Maduro called on his supporters to take to the streets to stage a counterprotest, which drew crowds dressed in red, the color of former President Hugo Chávez’s leftist movement.