Teens die in nightclub

More than 500 people were believed to be inside the club when the fight broke out. Julio Cesar Perdomo said his injured son told him the tear gas was launched from inside a bathroom and that partygoers tried to flee but found the club’s door closed. Pictures posted by Reverol on Twitter show a narrow staircase leading to a metal door.

‘‘The kids couldn’t leave,’’ Perdomo said.

Officials did not provide any information to confirm or deny Perdomo’s account.

The club is officially called ‘‘El Paraiso’’ but is more widely known as ‘‘Los Cotorros’’ or ‘‘The Chatterboxes.’’ Photos shared online from previous celebrations at the club show a dark interior with wooden tables and a stage upfront where DJS shuffled songs. Green painted metal bars and gates covered the doors and windows.

Outside, a faded sign on the red brick building read ‘‘We’ve opened!’’

Jesus Armas, an opposition councilman who lives in the neighbourhood, said the Interior Ministry should explain how a civilian was able to obtain tear gas canisters that should only be utilised by state security forces. He also urged authorities to investigate whether the club had permission to hold several hundred people inside.

‘‘That’s not a big space and that should not be authorised,’’ he said.

He added that other violent incidents had taken place inside the club, which is frequently used by the Ecuadorean immigrant community for parties and political events. Several campaign signs for Ecuadorean politicians were hung outside the building.

Police have detained the owner of the club for ‘‘not guaranteeing adequate supervision and preventing the entry of any type of weapon.’’

‘‘The establishment has been ordered closed, and we are investigating in co-ordination with the public ministry, which is directing the criminal investigation,’’ Reverol said.

Caracas is one of the most violent capitals in the world and the country is engulfed in a deepening economic crisis that has forced hundreds of thousands to flee. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence estimates about 26,600 people were killed in 2017.

The crime wave, coupled with a cratering economy, has extinguished much of Venezuela’s once vibrant nightlife and left many families hesitant to let their teenage children out after dark. Relatives of those inside the club said the party was a celebration for the graduating class of several different high schools. Some parents had been hesitant to let their children attend. – AP Saudi-led forces fought to retake the international airport of Yemen’s rebel-held port city of Hodeida, Yemeni officials and witnesses said on Saturday, as their Shiite Houthi rebel rivals denied the coalition had seized the facility that is the starving nation’s main gateway for food shipments.

With battles raging at the southern side of Hodeida International Airport, the military of Yemen’s exiled government said it had entirely seized the compound, and that engineers were working to clear mines from nearby areas just south of the city of some 600,000 people on the Red Sea.

‘‘The armed forces which are supported by the Arab coalition have freed Hodeida International Airport from the Houthi militias and the engineering teams have started to clear the airport and its surroundings from mines and bombs,’’ the military said on its official Twitter account.

Sadek Dawad, spokesman of the Republican Guards force loyal to the Saudi-led coalition, said government forces had battled their way on to the airport’s grounds.

Dawad also said the southern gate of Hodeida city was captured by pro-coalition forces. ‘‘The military operations to liberate the city of Hodeida will not be stopped until we secure the city and its strategic port and that won’t last too long,’’ he said.

Houthi-linked civil aviation authorities, however, denied that the Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni forces have taken control of Hodeida’s airport.

A statement posted Saturday on the Houthis’ official news agency, Saba, quoted Ahmed Taresh, the head of Hodeida airport, as adding that airstrikes have completely destroyed the airport. The Houthi-run Al Masirah satellite news channel aired footage it described as being from near Hodeida showing a burned-out truck, corpses of irregular fighters and a damaged Emirati armoured vehicle. The Iranian-aligned fighters rifled through a military ledger from the vehicle before chanting their slogan: ‘‘Death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory to Islam!’’ – AAP