The number of American citizens held in Venezuela has grown since the start of the U.S. military and economic campaign against President Nicolás Maduro.

Two members of Venezuela’s Wayuu indigenous community in the area told NBC News that they witnessed an unexplained explosion on Dec. 18 that destroyed a hut that possibly was used for storage.

The following is a deep look at contemporary Venezuela, its history, its riches, its alliances and its delicate internal balance of power amid growing tensions with the US.

Chinese oil tankers are pressing ahead with Venezuela-linked voyages despite a U.S. blockade and an escalating campaign of tanker seizures. Two Chinese-flagged VLCCs are operating near Venezuelan waters,

Trump acknowledged a covert U.S. strike on Venezuelan territory in an interview with a local news outlet on the day after Christmas, setting off a scramble to clarify which target he was talking about.

President Donald Trump said that the United States "knocked out" a "big facility" in Venezuela last week, in what appears to be a reference to a strike on a drug trafficking site in the country.

Venezuela’s proximity to Colombia, especially across the border state of Zulia and the Lake Maracaibo area, makes it a known transit corridor for Colombian cocaine moving toward the Caribbean and onward to Europe, with traffickers exploiting maritime and overland routes.

Today’s U.S.–Venezuela tensions aren’t just about a single strike or a single policy decision, they’re the result of years of political decay, economic mismanagement, and a long-running