VENEZUELANS ELECTROCUTED IN BURGLARY ATTEMPT

At least 12 people were killed overnight during looting and violence in Venezuela’s capital amid a spiralling political crisis, authorities said Friday. Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working-class neighbourhood near Caracas’ biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while trying to steal a refrigerator from a bakery. Two days of huge protests on the streets of Caracas against the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro spilled into a violent Thursday night in several parts of the city, with residents in El Valle witnessing repetitive gunfire, street barricades set aflame and more than two dozen businesses looted. Amid the confusion, mothers and newborn children had to be evacuated from a maternity hospital when it was hit with tear gas. The Public Ministry said the violence left 11 people dead in El Valle, all men between the ages of 17 and 45. Witnesses said masked looters descended on an area known as “the little market” filled with bakeries, supermarkets and butcher’s shops.