Teenage protester dies as demonstrations in Venezuela turn deadly

0 Venezualan pposition leader Henrique Capriles, centre, is greeted during a march in Caracas Opposition protests in Venezuela took a deadly turn again when a teenager was killed at a march demanding an end to the government’s push to rewrite the struggling nation’s constitution.

Hours later, the body of a national guardsman was found in a residential neighbourhood in eastern Caracas.

Hundreds of national guardsmen and police officers fired tear gas at protesters after defence minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez called for members of the military to refrain from excessive use of force.

Videos circulating on social media showed paramedics trying to resuscitate a lifeless young man as he bled profusely from his chest.

The office of the public ombudsman, an agency of the national government, tweeted late on Wednesday that an autopsy had determined the youth had been struck by a homemade explosive.

Opposition leaders identified the young man as 17-yearold Neomar Lander, and his relatives said he had gone with family members to demonstrate peacefully.

“I’m going to keep fighting,” said the teenager’s uncle, Mauro Arellano.

Residents banged on pots and pans for an hour in protest as night fell near the site of his death. Stores were closed and streets empty long before dark in a usually bustling part of the capital.

About 1.5 miles away, authorities found the body of William Josemendoza,asergeantwith the national guard, Caracasarea mayor Ramon Muchacho said. No details were immediately released on how or where he might have been killed.

The deaths were yet another indication that confrontations between state security forces and opponents of the social administration are unlikely to end soon. Nearly 70 people have died in two months of unrest fed by Venezuela’s triple-digit inflation, widespread food shortages and crime.

On Wednesday, President Nicolas Maduro continued his contentious campaign to hold a national assembly to rewrite the constitution. Speaking to military academy students, he again blamed opposition leaders for the violence roiling Venezuela. And as he has done previously, he compared assaults on progovernment forces to the persecution inflicted on Jews in Nazi Germany.

Only a few deaths during protests have resulted in arrests, and about half of those cases have been attributed to police. The vast majority of those killed have been young men, though a small handful of police officers have died.