This archive report was first published on 7 September 2019.
Christmas may seem far off, but for Frankeiber Hernandez, 18, the wait for his parents' return from Peru in December is almost unbearable.
His mother left when he was 16, and his father joined her the following year, leaving Frankeiber to grow up without parents in Venezuela's western Caracas suburb of Catia.
One in four Venezuelan migrants leave at least one child behind, amid acute shortages of basic foods and medicines, according to NGO Cecodap.
"About 846,000 children could be in this situation," Cecodap director Abel Saraiba said.
Grandmother Estelita is raising Frankeiber and his brother Fraiber, eight, with her husband in Catia, surviving on the dollars that the couple send back from Peru, where they work in a restaurant.
Remittances from Venezuelans living abroad were worth around $3 billion over the past year, according to analysts Econanalitica.
Estelita says she is thankful to her daughter for the money, "but I'd rather have her here because she keeps telling me 'I'm losing my son's love.'"
Children growing up without parents in the home experience irritability, depression, and anger, says Saraiba.
For Xavier, an 11-year-old who cries every night since his mother left a year ago, the pain is palpable.
"Mama I miss you," he writes in letters that he never sends.
His grandmother, Carmen Lugo, has taken care of Xavier, along with his two brothers and a cousin, since her two daughters left for Madrid.
As the brutal force of Venezuela's meltdown creates "transnational families" whose only links are WhatsApp conversations and remittances, child psychologists warn parents to avoid traumatising their children by promising them a hypothetical return that may never materialise.
