Young protester shot in the head amid continuation of demonstrations that brand President Nicolás Maduro a dictator and demand elections

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A 20-year-old Venezuelan protester has died after being shot in the head, authorities said, taking the death toll from a month of anti-government unrest to at least 37.



Hecder Lugo was killed during fighting between demonstrators and security forces in Valencia on Thursday that also injured four others, the local opposition mayor, Enzo Scarano, said in a series of tweets.

The state prosecutor’s office, which keeps an official count of deaths since protests began against the Socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, in early April, confirmed he died after being shot in a protest.

Another 717 people have been injured and 152 are still in jail from the hundreds rounded up in widespread unrest across the country, according to the office’s latest tally.

There has been violence and widespread looting this week in Valencia, a once bustling industrial hub two hours from the capital by road.

In an incident loaded with symbolism, a group of young men destroyed a statue of the late leader Hugo Chávez in the oil-producing Zulia state, according to videos circulating on social media on Friday evening.

'Everything is in chaos': night of violence reveals depths of Venezuela crisis Read more

Footage shows the statue, which depicts Chávez saluting and wearing a sash, being yanked down to cheers in a public plaza before it is bashed into a sidewalk and then the road as onlookers swear at the leftist, who died in 2013 from cancer.

“Students destroyed this statue of Chávez. They accuse him, correctly, of destroying their future,” the opposition lawmaker Carlos Valero said about the incident, which was also reported in local media. Reuters was unable to independently confirm it.

JMP (@jesunym) Derrumbe d la estatua d Chávez en Villa del Rosario edo Zulia @ObservadBinario @hcapriles @HaslerIglesias @trafficMcbo @MariaCorinaYA pic.twitter.com/1YfN03z4Rg

Venezuela’s opposition, which now enjoys majority support after being in the shadow of the ruling Socialist party since Chávez’s 1998 election win, says his successor, Maduro, has become a dictator and wrecked the economy.

Vowing to stay in the streets for as long as necessary, opposition leaders announced nationwide women’s marches for Saturday with the biggest planned for the capital, Caracas.

Opposition lawmakers briefly unfurled a banner on Friday at the National Assembly, where they won a majority in 2015 thanks to voter ire over the recession, saying “Maduro Dictator”.

The president says they are seeking a violent coup with US support and is setting up a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution and possibly replace the existing legislature.

“President Maduro has made a big call to national dialogue,” the foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez, told diplomats at a meeting on Friday, showing them images of violence and vandalism on the streets caused by youths at the front of protests.

“They are not peaceful. The opposition leaders share big responsibility in these acts of extremism and vandalism.”

Opposition protests have often started peacefully but degenerated into violence when security forces block marchers and masked youths fight them with stones, Molotov cocktails and fireworks shot from pipes turned into homemade mortars.



Fatalities have included supporters of both sides, bystanders and members of the security forces.

Gunshot wounds have been the most common cause of deaths.

The opposition is boycotting Maduro’s constituent assembly process, saying it is a ploy to keep him in power by setting up a body with mechanisms to ensure a government majority.

Having failed to trigger a referendum on his rule last year, the opposition is calling for delayed elections of state governors to be held as soon as possible, and for the next presidential election, slated for 2018, to be brought forward.

Polls show the ruling Socialists would badly lose any conventional vote due to four years of economic crisis that has led to debilitating food and medicine shortages.

While Maduro says opposition ranks include armed hoodlums, activists accuse the security forces of using excessive force, including firing teargas canisters directly at people and allowing pro-government gangs to terrorise demonstrators.

The opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, said on Friday that 85 members of the military in Caracas had been arrested for opposition “repression”, adding that their relatives had asked him to publicise the detentions.

Defence minister Vladimir Padrino’s cousin, Ernesto Padrino, wrote to him in an open letter: “Cousin, it’s enough!” He was following in the footsteps of the state human rights ombudsman’s son, who surprised the country by publishing a video begging his father to “end the injustice”.

“Eighty per cent of Venezuelans want elections as a way out of our nation’s grave economic and political crisis,” wrote Ernesto Padrino on Facebook.

“Sooner or later, the Venezuelan people will make you pay.” </s> Caracas - A fifth person died Thursday after being shot during protests against the Venezuelan government, officials said, as tension mounted in a political crisis driven by food shortages.

The 32-year-old man died from a gunshot wound suffered during clashes on Tuesday night in the northwestern town of Cabudare, a spokesperson for the public prosecution service who asked not to be named told AFP.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is fighting off efforts to oust him as Venezuela, once a booming oil exporting nation, struggles with shortages of food and medicine.

Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested since April 6, according to authorities.

Riot police in various cities have fired tear gas and water cannon at stone-throwing demonstrators.

Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina also reported the man's death on Twitter, identifying him as Antonio Gruseny Calderon.

Marquina called him "another victim of the dictatorship."

"My solidarity and condolences for all his relatives and friends. This must not go unpunished," he wrote.

Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in the western city of Barquisimeto, in Lara state.

Marquina blamed that killing on so-called "colectivos," armed supporters of the government who the opposition says commit violence during demonstrations.

A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.

Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.

Also on Thursday, opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.

"If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter.

Two other demonstrations took place in Caracas and one in the country's second city, Maracaibo, without incidents, according to media reports.

On Wednesday, scuffles broke out between government supporters and opponents during a Holy Week procession at the Santa Teresa church in central Caracas.

The next major organised rallies called by opposition leaders are set for Wednesday next week.

That is expected to be the next big showdown in an increasingly fraught crisis that has raised international concerns for Venezuela's stability.

The opposition is demanding the authorities set a date for postponed regional elections.

It is also furious over moves to limit the powers of the legislature and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics.

Those moves have raised international condemnation including from the United States and the European Union.

Maduro has resisted opposition efforts to hold a referendum on removing him, vowing to continue the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Maduro says the economic crisis is the result of what he calls a US-backed capitalist conspiracy. </s> Amid shortages of food and medicine, thousands take to Caracas streets as campaign to topple the president turns deadly.

Fresh clashes have erupted between police and protesters rallying against the Venezuelan government as a fifth person reportedly dies after being shot during earlier unrest.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in eastern Caracas amid a tropical downpour on Thursday to support a protest movement that appears to be gaining steam even as it turns more deadly.

Venezuela officials confirmed later in the day that a fifth person had died in the wave of anti-government protests now entering its third week.

The public prosecutor's office says it will investigate the death of Miguel Colmenares, 36.

He was shot at during a protest in the central city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's socialist president, is fighting off efforts to topple him as Venezuela struggles with shortages of food and medicine.

Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested over the past week in clashes in various cities, according to authorities.

Alfonso Marquina, an opposition politician, on Twitter identified the latest death as Antonio Gruseny Calderon and called him "another victim of the dictatorship".

Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in Barquisimeto.

Marquina blamed that killing on so-called colectivos, armed supporters of the government whom the opposition accuses of attacking them during demonstrations.

A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.

Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.

Also on Thursday, Jose Manuel Olivares, another opposition legislator, said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.

"If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter.

While demonstrations are often held in middle-class neighbourhoods, this most recent wave of unrest for the first time has prompted protests in the slums that have historically been bastions of support for the socialist revolution launched nearly two decades ago by Hugo Chavez, the late president.
A young man is shot dead in Valencia, Carabobo, amid ongoing protests against the government of Nicolás Maduro. Protesters tear down a statue of former President Hugo Chávez in Rosario de Perijá.