Teen killed in Venezuelan anti-government march
A teenager was shot dead as tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro flooded the streets of Caracas on Wednesday in what’s been dubbed the “mother of all marches” against the embattled socialist.
Carlos Romero, just three days away from celebrating his 18th birthday, was walking home from a soccer game when he bumped into pro-government militias stalking a small pocket of protesters, a close family friend Melvin Sojo, told The Associated Press at the hospital where doctors tried in vain to save the boy’s life.
Sojo, who grew up in the Romero home, said police and two people who rushed his brother to the hospital told him the boy had been shot in the head by pro-government groups.
Official confirmation of Sojo’s account was not immediately available, and the county’s energy minister said the boy was killed during an attempted assault.
He’s the sixth person killed since protests began three weeks ago over the Supreme Court’s decision to strip the oppositioncontrolled congress of its last remaining powers after a year-long power battle.
Energy Minister Luis Motta Dominguez told lines of state workers preparing to join a large countermarch that the reports of the boy’s death at the hands of pro-government groups were false, saying he had been killed during a botched assault, and that they would have to use all their political weaponry to combat the lies of Maduro’s “fascist” opponents.
“We’re a peaceful people, but we’re also armed,” he said.
Tens of thousands of angry protesters converged from 26 different points spread across the capital to attempt to march downtown to the Ombudsman’s office.