Death toll jumps to 20 in Venezuela protests
CARACAS: The death toll in three weeks of violence at antigovernment protests in Venezuela jumped to 20 people after a night of clashes and pillaging left 12 people dead in Caracas.
Riot police and pro-government vigilantes fought running battles with protesters demanding the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro on the capital’s east, west and south sides, witnesses said.
“It was like a war,” said 33year-old construction worker Carlos Yanez, a resident of the southwestern district of El Valle.
“The police were firing tear gas, armed civilians were shooting guns at buildings. My family and I threw ourselves to the floor. It was horrible,” he told AFP.
Eleven people were killed in the neighborhood, according to officials.
Eight of them were reportedly electrocuted while trying to loot a bakery amid the chaos. The rest were shot.
At nightfall on Friday, more protests and pockets of unrest were reported in eastern Caracas, and in Macuto in the neighboring state of Vargas.
There was a heavy security presence in the city.
Police fired teargas to disperse crowds in the Caracas district of Palo Verde, where burning barricades of trash were set up. Armed men on motorbikes also sparked panic, witnesses told AFP.
The opposition accuses the government of sending gangs of armed thugs to attack them.
Videos shot by El Valle residents on Thursday night showed people throwing bottles and other objects out their windows at the gunmen in the streets below, shouting “Murderers!”
At one point, street protesters hurling Molotov cocktails managed to set fire to one of the armored police trucks firing tear gas at them, lighting up the night sky.
Fifty-four people, including newborn babies, were evacuated from a maternity hospital in the neighborhood.
There were conflicting explanations about the reason.
The government said “armed gangs hired by the opposition” had attacked the hospital. The opposition rejected the allegation, saying the children had to be evacuated because of tear gas fired by Maduro’s ‘dictatorship.’
The hospital’s director, Rosalinda Prieto, told AFP the evacuation was prompted by the stench of burning trash set on fire by protesters.
A man was shot dead in protests in the eastern neighborhood of Petare, the local mayor said. — AFP