Venezuela nightclub stampede leaves at least 17 people dead, including eight minors

At least 17 people have been killed in a stampede in a Caracas nightclub in Venezuela after a person activated a tear gas grenade inside, Venezuela's interior minister Nestor Reverol says.

More than 500 people were at a party at the Los Cotorros club in the middle-class El Paraiso neighbourhood when the device went off at about 3:00am during a fight between several people, causing a stampede towards the exits, Mr Reverol said on state TV.

Eleven people suffocated to death when the gas filled the club's confined space, said Noris Villanueva, an autopsy assistant at the local Perez Carreno Hospital, who examined their bodies. It was not clear how the other six died.

Eight of those who died were younger than 18, Mr Reverol said, and five people were injured.

Mr Reverol said authorities had arrested seven people and the investigation was ongoing.

"The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, led by President Nicolas Maduro, deplores this unfortunate event," he said.

"We send our condolences to the families."

The club, a two-storey red brick building, was empty later on Saturday morning (local time) and there was no police presence outside.

He only knew his 19-year-old son Luis had died because he had seen him in the morgue. Another son of his had been hospitalised.

Homicide rates in Venezuela have shot up during the country's spiral into economic crisis and political meltdown and many Caracas residents refuse to go out at night due to security fears.

There were almost 27,000 violent deaths last year, making Venezuela proportionally the world's second most murderous nation after El Salvador, according to a local crime monitoring group.

The homicide rate in Caracas alone was 104 per 100,000 people, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence said.

Authorities say non-governmental groups inflate figures to create paranoia and tarnish Maduro's socialist Government. </s> At least four people have died following overnight clashes ahead of Wednesday's rival protests in Venezuela by supporters and opponents of President Nicolas Maduro, police and non-governmental organizations said.

A 16-year-old was among the dead having suffered "a firearm injury during a demonstration" in the capital Caracas, the Social Conflict Observatory said.

The other three deaths were registered in the southern state of Bolivar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) </s> Students held demonstrations across Caracas today as a two-month-old protest movement that shows no signs of letting up claimed more lives. At the Central University of Venezuela, soldiers bathed hundreds of student protesters in tear gas. Many of the protesters stayed put, and medics in gas masks attended to others with bloodied faces and limbs.

Students from another university marched peacefully to deliver a petition to the office of the country’s Catholic bishops, asking the Pope to speak out against the violence and the government’s steps toward authoritarianism.

Gunfire erupted at a student gathering in El Tigre, a city southeast of Caracas, leaving Juan Lopez, 33, dead and three others injured, according to the chief prosecutor’s office.

According to preliminary reports, an assailant fired at Lopez toward the end of the meeting and then fled on a motorcycle. Lopez was the president of a university federation. The student leader’s death brought the number of people killed in Venezuela’s ongoing political turmoil to at least 37.

Earlier today, authorities announced that a 38-year-old police officer in the central state of Carabobo had died of his injuries after being shot during a Wednesday protest that had hundreds of thousands of people on the street nationwide. A 17 year-old was also killed during the day’s protests.

Hundreds more have been wounded – no small matter in a country with crippling medical shortages. And more than 1,000 have been arrested.

Protesters are demanding immediate presidential elections. President Nicolas Maduro accuses the opposition of attempting a coup, and has responded with an initiative to rewrite the constitution.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now </s> CARACAS, VENEZUELA—Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in wealthy eastern Caracas Thursday amid a tropical downpour to support a protest movement that is gaining steam even as it turns more deadly.

Venezuela officials confirmed earlier 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 36-year-old Miguel Colmenares. He was shot at a protest in the central city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday.

Read more:Venezuelans rally to oppose President Maduro as officials attempt to break up crowd

Gruseny Calderon was killed during the same protest. Congressman Alfonso Marquina says the 32-year-old protester was injured by rubber bullets that pierced his lung and liver. </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. </s> At least three people were killed in Venezuela when clashes broke out during anti-government protests described by opposition leaders as the “mother of all marches.”

Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro also held a counter rally Wednesday as opposition marchers gathered in the streets.

An hour into the march in Caracas, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the head, according to the Venezuela’s public ministry, which said it had started investigating the incident. The teenager, later identified as Carlos Moreno, died while undergoing surgery, a hospital representative told CNN.

Moreno’s sister, Alejandra, said Carlos studied economics at Venezuelan Central University in Caracas. Instead of joining the marches, she said, he was on the way to play soccer.

Video posted on social media showed a young man on the ground in the San Bernardino neighborhood — a pool of blood near his head — surrounded by marchers. A woman is heard yelling, “They’ve killed him.”

The ministry said it was also investigating the Wednesday afternoon shooting death of Paola Andreina Ramírez Gómez, 23, in plaza San Carlos in San Cristóbal, Tachira state.

Jorban Contreras, a paramedic and director of the civil protection unit in Tachira, said the woman lost a lot of blood and was already dead from a gunshot wound to her chest when he arrived.

In a third death, Venezuelan National Guard Sgt. Niumar Jose San Clemente Barrios was fatally shot Wednesday night, said the public prosecutor’s office and Venezuela’s top human rights official, ombudsman Tarek William Saab. A second guardsman was wounded by a bullet, the officials said. Both were shot during “violent protests” in the municipality of Los Salias, south of the nation’s capital, according to Saab.

The public prosecutor’s office has called for an investigation into the shooting.

Maduro: Don’t complain when law comes after you

Maduro, who along with his supporters called for the countermarch, had deployed the Venezuelan armed forces to the streets on Sunday night amid rising tensions.

He gave a fiery speech on Wednesday, accusing the opposition leaders of inciting violence. He called out the President of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, saying “You are the head of the coup. Later, don’t complain when the law comes after you.”

Wednesday’s marches underscored the widening political rifts in the country, where the opposition has accused Maduro of creating a dictatorship in the last few years. The government has repeatedly blocked any attempts by the opposition to oust Maduro from power by a referendum vote. It has also delayed local and state elections.

The opposition called for another march on Thursday, using the same strategy from the day before when protesters started their march at 26 different points throughout Caracas and converged at the office of the ombudsman, the government’s top human rights official.

Government supporters and security forces on Wednesday succeeded in blocking marchers from reaching certain parts of the city, according to observers. Throughout the day, water cannons and tear gas canisters were unleashed on opposition marchers.

Video posted on social media showed marchers — some covering their faces — crossing the narrow Guaire River in the nation’s capital in attempts to elude tear gas blasts.

The video was posted by David Smolansky, mayor of the municipality of El Hatillo and an opposition leader.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed concerns to reporters Wednesday that the “government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people.”

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said via Twitter on Wednesday that he had directed his country’s exterior ministry to ask the UN Secretary General to address what he called the “worrying militarization of Venezuelan society.”

What the opposition wants

The last vote held in Venezuela, the parliamentary election of 2015, gave the opposition a majority. Critics say any elections since have been delayed because Maduro is afraid of the outcome.

Then, on March 29, the Venezuelan Supreme Court dissolved the Parliament, transferring all legislative powers to itself. By doing away with the opposition-controlled legislative branch, the move effectively meant the remaining two branches of Venezuelan government were controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party. The opposition was outraged and called the move a coup. The decision was reversed three days later, but by that time protests had already erupted.

The protests have been bloody. Six people have died and countless others, many journalists, have been injured.

The opposition call became even stronger when, on April 7, the government notified main opposition leader Henrique Capriles that he had been banned from doing any political work for 15 years. The 44-year-old governor, who has run for president twice, said the government was again acting like a dictatorship.

Maduro, 54, has been defiant. Instead of taking steps to reduce tensions with the opposition, he has taken a confrontational tone with members of the opposition and protesters, whom he calls “vandals and terrorists.”

Opposition leaders have called for the National Assembly’s powers to be fully restored, for all the political prisoners to be freed, for a humanitarian corridor to be opened and for the stalled elections to take place.

Unemployment, meanwhile, is set to surpass 25% this year, possibly on its way to 28% next year. It was at 7.4% in 2015.

Venezuela’s economy shrank 18% last year, its third year of recession. It is expected to be in the red this year and next.

The country’s food shortages have become severe in the last couple of years. Venezuelans have endured weeks, in some cases months, without basics like milk, eggs, flour, soap and toilet paper.

When there is food and water on the shelves, prices are so high that few Venezuelans can afford it. Many have taken to eating out of the trash.

Medicine also remains in short supply. Venezuelans hunt for penicillin and other remedies at pharmacies everywhere, often without success. The country’s public hospitals have fallen apart, causing people, including infants, to die because of the scarcity of basic medical care.

Venezuela recently asked the United Nations for help to relieve serious shortages of medicines in the country. </s> Anti-government protesters march with a banner that reads in Spanish "Freedom without fear" along a highway in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro flooded the streets of Caracas in what's been dubbed the "mother of all marches" against the embattled president. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The latest on opposition and pro-government marches in Venezuela (all times local):

The U.S. secretary of state says the Trump administration is concerned about the political turmoil in Venezuela and feels socialist President Nicolas Maduro is trying to squash the voice of his opponents.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tells reporters at the State Department that the U.S. is "concerned that the government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard." He says Venezuela's government is not allowing the opposition "to organize in ways that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people."

Tillerson says the U.S. is watching the situation closely and is working with others, particularly through the Organization of American States, to communicate its concerns to Venezuela.

Authorities say a second protester has been killed in anti-government protests taking place across Venezuela.

The 23-year-old woman identified as Paola Ramirez was killed by gunfire from pro-government groups circling protesters in the western city of San Cristobal, the town's mayor told The Associated Press. There were no other details immediately available.

Earlier, a 17-year-old was pronounced dead at a Caracas hospital after being shot in the head while walking near a protest.

A Venezuelan teenager who was shot in the head near anti-government protests in the capital has died.

Miguel Salomon is president of the Clinicas Caracas hospital. He says the boy died in the operating room as surgeons attempted to save his life.

Venezuela's chief prosecutor said she is investigating the Wednesday shooting incident amid conflicting reports over the cause of death. Some opponents of President Nicolas Maduro say armed pro-government militias opened gunfire on a crowd of protesters, bu top officials say the boy named Carlos Moreno was assaulted while walking home from a soccer game.

There have been five other deaths nationwide tied to protests that began in early April after the Supreme Court gutted the opposition-controlled congress of its last remaining powers.

Venezuela has reiterated to the Organization of American States that it does not recognize the hemispheric group's resolution saying the South American country had violated constitutional order.

Venezuelan Ambassador Samuel Moncada spoke as the opposition and government supporters held dueling marches in Caracas.

Moncada told members of the Washington-based organization that the resolution by the OAS on April 3 was to blame for the violence that occurred at demonstrations in the last two weeks.

The ambassador also accused the United States and OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro of encouraging an overthrow of Venezuela's socialist government, echoing an earlier accusation by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

A senior diplomatic official for the Western Hemisphere was in Miami condemning the government of Venezuela as the opposition in the South American nation flooded into the streets for a massive demonstration.

Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro told an audience at an economic forum that Venezuela has "deteriorated into a full-scale dictatorship." He said Venezuelans have been denied basic human rights and that the government of President Nicolas Maduro is only concerned with maintaining its power.

Almagro said the OAS would continue to seek a restoration of democracy.

He spoke Wednesday at the 7th World Strategic Forum at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

The OAS recently issued a strong rebuke to Venezuela for the slide toward militarism. Maduro said the hemispheric organization was persecuting his country.

Marchers in the opposition demonstration in Caracas included Liliana Machuca, who earns about $20 a month holding two jobs teaching literature.

Her face was covered in a white substance to protect herself from the nauseous effects of what she expects will be another day of dodging tear gas canisters.

Machuca said during Wednesday's march says she doesn't expect change overnight, but believes that protesting is her only option after all the abuses she says have been committed by the government.

She says: "This is like a chess game and each side is moving whatever pieces they can. ..... we'll see who tires out first." A short block away from where the opposition was gathering, a sea of red-shirted government supporters marched by calmly, some dancing to a salsa band. They included state workers like Leidy Marquez, who was bused in from Tachira state on the other side of teh country. Venezuelan National Guard members are deploying tear gas on an opposition march in western Caracas in an effort to disperse demonstrators. The marchers who have flooded some major streets are refusing to budge. Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro called on Venezuelans to take to the streets on Wednesday for what they dubbed the "mother of all marches" against the embattled socialist leader. Government supporters are holding their own counter demonstration. Rodriguez spoke Wednesday during a visit to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, referring to dueling opposition and pro-government marches being held the same day in the South American country. The Cuban official notes that Venezuela is a sovereign state with a democratically elected government. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the U.S. State Department of encouraging Venezuelan opponents to attempting a government overthrow. American officials have rejected such charges in the past. Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro have called on Venezuelans to take to the streets for what they've dubbed the "mother of all marches" against the embattled socialist leader. Demonstrators are converging from 26 different points spread across the capital to attempt to march downtown to the Ombudsman's office. It's a route tens of thousands of angry protesters have attempted a half-dozen times in the past few weeks only to find their progress blocked by light-armored vehicles and a curtain of tear gas and rubber bullets fired by riot police officers. At least five deaths have been blamed on the strong-armed response to protests that were triggered by the government-stacked Supreme Court's decision three weeks ago to strip the opposition-controlled congress of its last remaining powers. </s> Students battled tear gas-throwing police officers in demonstrations across Venezuela's capital Thursday as a two-month-old protest movement that shows no signs of letting up claimed more lives.

"We are students, not terrorists!" a mass of students chanted as they marched in Caracas.

Soldiers bathed hundreds of protesters in tear gas at the Central University of Venezuela, with medics in gas masks attending to students with bloodied faces and limbs.

"Do you know how many dead there are?" Rafaela Requesens, a student leader, shouted at a wall of National Guard officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder and stopping protesters from advancing. "They are your victims."

Gunfire erupted at a student gathering in El Tigre, a city southeast of Caracas, leaving Juan Lopez, 33, dead and three others injured, according to the chief prosecutor's office. Preliminary reports indicate an assailant fired at Lopez toward the end of the meeting and then fled on a motorcycle. Lopez was the president of a university federation.

The student leader's death brought to at least 37 the number killed in Venezuela's ongoing political turmoil.

Earlier Thursday, authorities announced a 38-year-old police officer in the central state of Carabobo had died of his injuries after being shot during a Wednesday protest that had hundreds of thousands of people on the street nationwide. Wednesday's protest also left a 17-year-old student and musician dead.

More than 700 others have been wounded, no small matter in a country with crippling medical shortages. Opposition leaders said 30 were injured in Thursday's student demonstrations. Overall, more than 1,000 have been arrested.

West of Caracas in Valencia, there were reports of looting at several businesses and at least one factory, the thieves taking off with plastic crates filled with bottles and even a forklift.

Protesters are demanding immediate presidential elections. President Nicolas Maduro accuses the opposition of attempting a coup, and has responded with an initiative to rewrite the constitution.

Walking through an agricultural expo where he pet goats and sampled cheese Thursday, Maduro repeatedly reiterated his call for a special assembly tasked with defining Venezuela's future. He added that the yet-to-be-created constituent body would decide the South American nation's destiny "for the next 50 years."

International pressure on Maduro to hold elections is continuing to escalate amid his call for a constitution rewrite. A group of bipartisan U.S. legislators sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday urging him to apply new sanctions against individuals responsible for human rights violations and to push for the delivery of humanitarian relief.

Eight Latin American nations issued a statement decrying the excessive use of force by Venezuelan authorities against protesters, saying such actions only, "polarize Venezuelan society even more."

And Venezuelan classical music maestro Gustavo Dudamel spoke out against events in his country, calling on Maduro to listen to the protesters.

In an online essay titled "I Raise My Voice," he urged Maduro to reduce political tensions.

"We must stop ignoring the just cry of the people suffocated by an intolerable crisis," said Dudamel, who is serving as the Los Angeles Philharmonic's musical director.

Venezuelans and fellow classical music performers have blasted Dudamel in the past for being cozy with Maduro.

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A student is killed amid gunfire in El Tigre, raising the death toll in protests against Nicolás Maduro's government to at least 37 in the past month.