Protesters set fire to late President Hugo Chavez’s childhood home in western Venezuela on Monday, an opposition lawmaker said, as protests against the South American nation’s socialist government grew increasingly hostile.

While demonstrators are decrying current President Nicolas Maduro for the country’s triple-digit inflation, rising crime and shortages of food and medicine, they have also destroyed at least five statues commemorating Chavez, Maduro’s mentor and the founder of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution.”

Demonstrators lit the house in the city of Barinas where Chavez spent his early years aflame Monday afternoon along with several government buildings, including the regional office of the National Electoral Council, said Pedro Luis Castillo, a legislator who represents the area.

The burnings capped a violent day in Barinas — known as the cradle of Chavez’s revolution — during which protesters clashed with national guardsmen, businesses were shuttered and roads were blocked with fire-filled barricades.

Nineteen-year-old Yorman Bervecia was shot and killed during a protest, according to the nation’s chief prosecutor. His death brings to at least 49 the number killed in nearly two months of anti-government protests demanding new elections.

“It is pretty symbolic that the citizens are venting their frustrations on the author of the Bolivarian revolution,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas.

The street clashes engulfing Venezuela appear to be turning increasingly violent, with both security forces and youth protesters looking more unruly.

Residents of Caracas awoke to several smoldering barricades made of trash and torn-down street signs. Access to the capital’s downtown was blocked at several points by heavily armed security forces looking to prevent a march to the Health Ministry to demand Maduro open a so-called humanitarian corridor for the delivery of medicine and food aid.

On the outskirts of Caracas, where reports of nighttime protests and looting have become more frequent, the situation was even more tense: Young men with their faces covered or wearing gas masks put down barbed wire at roadblocks every few blocks and menacingly asked bystanders for contributions to their “Resistance” movement. </s> Protesters set fire to late President Hugo Chavez’s childhood home in western Venezuela on Monday, an opposition lawmaker said, as protests against the South American nation’s socialist government grew increasingly hostile.

While demonstrators are decrying current President Nicolas Maduro for the country’s triple-digit inflation, rising crime and shortages of food and medicine, they have also destroyed at least five statues commemorating Chavez, Maduro’s mentor and the founder of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution.”

Demonstrators lit the house in the city of Barinas where Chavez spent his early years aflame Monday afternoon along with several government buildings, including the regional office of the National Electoral Council, said Pedro Luis Castillo, a legislator who represents the area.

The burnings capped a violent day in Barinas — known as the cradle of Chavez’s revolution — during which protesters clashed with national guardsmen, businesses were shuttered and roads were blocked with fire-filled barricades.

Nineteen-year-old Yorman Bervecia was shot and killed during a protest, according to the nation’s chief prosecutor. His death brings to at least 49 the number killed in nearly two months of anti-government protests demanding new elections.

“It is pretty symbolic that the citizens are venting their frustrations on the author of the Bolivarian revolution,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the Council of the Americas.

The street clashes engulfing Venezuela appear to be turning increasingly violent, with both security forces and youth protesters looking more unruly.

Residents of Caracas awoke to several smouldering barricades made of trash and torn-down street signs. Access to the capital’s downtown was blocked at several points by heavily armed security forces looking to prevent a march to the Health Ministry to demand Maduro open a so-called humanitarian corridor for the delivery of medicine and food aid.

On the outskirts of Caracas, where reports of nighttime protests and looting have become more frequent, the situation was even more tense: Young men with their faces covered or wearing gas masks put down barbed wire at roadblocks every few blocks and menacingly asked bystanders for contributions to their “Resistance” movement.

Opposition leaders are urging restraint from their followers, but say security forces and pro-government militias — not the protesters — are behind the vast number of deadly attacks.

Maduro accused protesters Sunday of setting fire to a government supporter, saying what he calls “Nazi-fascist” elements are taking root inside the opposition’s ranks and contributing to a dangerous spiral of violence in the two-month anti-government protest movement.

Maduro said that 21-year-old Orlando Zaragoza suffered burns to almost all his body when he was doused with gasoline and set on fire at a protest in Caracas a day earlier. Videos circulating on social media show a man covered in flames fleeing a small mob. Maduro said he was being treated.

It’s not clear what triggered the attack, which is under investigation, although some eyewitnesses told local media that Zaragoza was caught robbing demonstrators who had gathered by the tens of thousands to protest Maduro’s rule.

“In Venezuela there’s rising a counterrevolution of Nazi-fascist influence that that has infected the emotions and thinking of thousands of compatriots, who believe they have the right to pursue others for the simple crime of being Venezuelan or Chavista or revolutionary,” Maduro said in his weekly TV program. “This is terrorism.”

Meanwhile, a retired army general opposed to Maduro denounced what he said are plans by the military in the central state of Lara to deploy snipers to control protests that turn violent.

The plans were discussed in a month-old conversation among top generals in the state secretly recorded by one of the participants, according to retired Gen. Cliver Cordones, who on Monday sent a petition to Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega asking her to investigate the matter.

Cordones, who broke with Maduro more than a year ago, said he obtained the recording and written transcript of the conversation in a pen drive left in an unmarked envelope at his residence.

In it, a man identified as Gen. Jose Rafael Torrealba, the top military official in the state, discusses the need to start selecting soldiers with proven psychological and technical strength for use as sharpshooters. The context of the conversation is what the officer says is the increasing use of firearms by protesters to shoot at security forces.

“The time will come in which we’ll have to deploy them, and I want us to be ready for that moment,” the man identified as Torrealba says.

“The president won’t just stay in his green phase gentlemen,” he adds, referring to the first stage of a military plan to control the protests announced last month by Maduro.

While some can be heard voicing support for the idea, at least one expresses concern that such plans, if acted on, could land commanding officers in jail.

The Associated Press also obtained a copy of the recording from a person in contact with one of the participants. The source demanded anonymity for safety. But the AP was unable to verify its authenticity or the identities of those alleged to have taken part in the conversation. There has also been no response from Torrealba or the military since the recording was first reported last week by the Spanish-language affiliate of the Miami Herald. </s> Protesters have set late president Hugo Chavez's childhood home in western Venezuela on fire, an opposition legislator said, as protests against the nation's socialist government grew increasingly hostile. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/hugo-chavezs-childhood-home-burned-by-antigovernment-protesters-in-venezuela-35744544.html http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article35744543.ece/151a9/AUTOCROP/h342/PANews%20BT_P-158c1e19-b1ef-4ad8-9f6f-bd6b3b35dd63_I1.jpg Protesters have set late president Hugo Chavez's childhood home in western Venezuela on fire, an opposition legislator said, as protests against the nation's socialist government grew increasingly hostile.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Belfast Telegraph. </s> Anti-socialist protesters in Venezuela’s Barinas state burned down the childhood home of late dictator Hugo Chávez on Monday, as well as the old home of his grandmother, and attacked a number of government buildings with Molotov cocktails.

The attacks appeared to be a reaction to the news that soldiers had killed yet another young man peacefully protesting in Venezuela, bringing the death toll during this latest round of protests up to 62. Protesters appear increasingly frustrated with the socialist opposition’s tactic of staging an anti-government march per day calling for presidential elections, which would be run by socialist government officials and have little chance of being free and fair.

The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported that multiple photos began surfacing on social media of the burned down home on Monday evening. Social media users noted that the fire began shortly after the news that the military had killed 19-year-old Yorman Alí Bervecia Cabeza for protesting against socialism. The Associated Press later confirmed that protesters had burned down the Chávez home with opposition legislator Pedro Luis Castillo, who represents Barinas.

The Spanish newspaper ABC, which has been on the forefront of reporting on the corruption of both the Chávez regime and that of successor Nicolás Maduro, reported that protesters also burned down the home of Chávez’s grandmother and attacked the local headquarters of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the National Electoral Council (CNE), the regional headquarters of the Secretariat of Education, and the Institute of Housing. The newspaper adds that protesters looted fifty businesses, including multiple bakeries and areperas, restaurants that specialize in the Venezuelan corn arepas.

While Chávez’s socialist policies had already collapsed the Venezuelan economy, Maduro’s imposition of strict price controls, ration cards, and government requirements on bakeries have left much of the nation without food. An estimated 15 percent of Venezuelans subsist off of industrial garbage, while three out of four Venezuelans lost an average of 19 pounds in 2016 due to food shortages

Protesters also attacked military convoys and set armored vehicles on fire.

ABC adds that protesters also burned down yet another statue of Chávez, noting that at least four statues have been taken down or burned since this latest wave of protests began. The left-wing Spanish newspaper ABC notes that the socialist opposition group Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) appeared to distance itself from these incidents, as it had “only organized for Monday a protest for health, congregating medical and nursing professionals in Caracas and other cities to protest the sanitary crisis plaguing the country.”

The MUD is a coalition of anti-Maduro parties that currently has the majority in the National Assembly. They are calling for the release of political prisoners, free and fair elections, and an end to the use of the military to kill peaceful protesters. The MUD spearheaded an attempt at dialogue with the government throughout 2016 that largely failed and served to diminish the intensity of opposition against Maduro, which has led to growing unpopularity among opponents of the government

Incidents like the destruction of the Chávez statue in Barinas have occurred nationwide, the most recent before this one being in Zulia state, with another statue going down in Carabobo, near Caracas. In westernmost state Táchira, which has been in open revolt for at least three years, protesters beheaded a statue of Chávez in 2014.

The socialists have littered Venezuela with such statues, as well as murals and “street art” meant to applaud Chávez and his work imposing the dysfunctional socialist system on the country. Among the most popular “street art” images is a close-up of Chávez’s eyes, meant to send the message that the late dictator is still spying on all Venezuelans from beyond the grave.

The Chávez family also holds great influence in the country still. The late dictator’s brother Adán runs the Institute of Housing, which the protesters attacked, and his daughter María Gabriela Chávez is believed to be the nation’s wealthiest woman.

The latest string of protests, which began 53 days ago in response to the Supreme Court attempting to annul the National Assembly and install itself as the nation’s legislative body, has left 62 people dead so far. Maduro has allowed the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) to use violence against unarmed protesters to an outrageous degree, including the use of armored tanks to run protesters over, shoot them to death, or asphyxiate them with tear gas. </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — At least 12 people were killed overnight following looting and violence in Venezuela’s capital amid a spiraling political crisis, authorities said Friday.

Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas’ biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence.

Two days of massive protests on the streets of Caracas against the government of President Nicolas Maduro spilled into a violent night in several parts of the city, with residents in El Valle witnessing repetitive gunfire, street barricades set aflame and more than a dozen businesses looted. Amid the confusion, mothers and newborn children had to be evacuated from a maternity hospital named after the late leader Hugo Chavez when it was swamped with tear gas.

The Public Ministry said the violence left 11 people dead in El Valle, all men between the ages of 17 and 45. Another death was reported east of Caracas in El Sucre. Six others were injured.

Opposition leaders blamed the government for repressing protesters with tear gas but standing idly by as businesses were looted. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez pointed the finger at the opposition, saying armed groups controlled by them were responsible for the attack at the hospital.

“We reject and do not accept those irresponsible declarations,” said Henrique Capriles, a former presidential candidate who the government recently barred from running for public office.

Earlier Friday, officials reported that one of the dead was Mervins Guitian. The young Venezuelan man was fatally shot when he was returning home late from work on Thursday and got caught in the middle of late-night street clashes. Vicente Paez, a local councilman, said Guitian was an employee of a Caracas-area city governed by an opposition mayor and didn’t join the protests. It wasn’t clear who shot him and there was no immediate comment from authorities.

Venezuelan social media was ablaze late into the night with grainy cellphone videos of light-armored vehicles plowing down dark streets to control pockets of protesters who set up burning barricades in several neighborhoods.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami said Friday the country is facing an “unconventional war” led by opposition groups working in concert with criminal gangs. He said opposition claims government forces were responsible for launching tear gas at the maternity hospital were another attempt to demoralize a people who have “decided to break ties with the bourgeoisie forever.”

Overall, at least 20 people have been killed in the unrest generated after the government-stacked Supreme Court gutted congress of its last vestiges of power three weeks ago — a move later reversed amid a storm of international criticism. Opposition members say they do not intend to ease up on protests demanding new elections as they decry a government they deem a dictatorship responsible for triple-digit inflation, rising crime and food shortages.

“Twenty days of resistance and we feel newly born,” said opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara during an evening, outdoor press conference as residents looking out from balconies in an eastern Caracas neighborhood at the heart of the protest movement cheered loudly in support.

The next planned protest is Saturday, when opponents are being asked to dress in white and march silently to commemorate the victims of the demonstration. There’s also a sit-in to block major highways planned for Monday.

General Motors announced early Thursday that it was closing its operations in Venezuela after authorities seized its factory in the industrial city of Valencia, a move that could draw the Trump administration into the escalating chaos engulfing the nation.

A number of major Latin American governments, including Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, called on Venezuela to take steps to increase democratic order and halt the violence that has been swirling around the protests. Across the country, clashes have been intense as protests grow in size and fervor.

The Supreme Court ruling reinvigorated Venezuela’s fractious opposition, which had been struggling to channel growing disgust with Maduro over widespread food shortages, triple-digit inflation and rampant crime.

Opponents are pushing for Maduro’s removal through early elections and the release of dozens of political prisoners. The government last year abruptly postponed regional elections that the opposition was heavily favored to win and it cut off a petition drive aimed at forcing a referendum seeking Maduro’s removal before elections scheduled for late next year.

But the government hasn’t backed down.

Already drawing criticism for the GM seizure, Maduro announced late Thursday that he wanted an investigation into cellphone operator Movistar for allegedly being part of the “coup-minded march” organized by his adversaries Wednesday. That march was the largest and most dramatic the country has seen in years. He said the subsidiary of Spain’s Telefonica “sent millions of messages to users every two hours” in support of Wednesday’s protests.

As tensions mount, the government is using its almost-complete control of Venezuela’s institutions to pursue its opponents. On Wednesday alone, 565 protesters were arrested nationwide, according to Penal Forum, a local group that provides legal assistance to detainees. It said 334 remained in jail Thursday.

Associated Press photographer Juan Carlos Hernandez in Valencia, AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit, and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

More Associated Press reporting on Venezuela’s problems can be found at https://www.ap.org/explore/venezuela-undone . </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — At least 12 people were killed overnight following looting and violence in Venezuela’s capital amid a spiraling political crisis, authorities said Friday.

Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas’ biggest military base where opposition leaders say 13 people were hit with an electrical current while trying to loot a bakery protected by an electric fence.

Two days of massive protests on the streets of Caracas against the government of President Nicolas Maduro spilled into a violent night in several parts of the city, with residents in El Valle witnessing repetitive gunfire, street barricades set aflame and more than a dozen businesses looted. Amid the confusion, mothers and newborn children had to be evacuated from a maternity hospital named after the late leader Hugo Chavez when it was swamped with tear gas.

The Public Ministry said the violence left 11 people dead in El Valle, all men between the ages of 17 and 45. Another death was reported east of Caracas in El Sucre. Six others were injured.

Opposition leaders blamed the government for repressing protesters with tear gas but standing idly by as businesses were looted. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez pointed the finger at the opposition, saying armed groups controlled by them were responsible for the attack at the hospital.

“We reject and do not accept those irresponsible declarations,” said Henrique Capriles, a former presidential candidate who the government recently barred from running for public office.

Earlier Friday, officials reported that one of the dead was Mervins Guitian. The young Venezuelan man was fatally shot when he was returning home late from work on Thursday and got caught in the middle of late-night street clashes. Vicente Paez, a local councilman, said Guitian was an employee of a Caracas-area city governed by an opposition mayor and didn’t join the protests. It wasn’t clear who shot him and there was no immediate comment from authorities.

Venezuelan social media was ablaze late into the night with grainy cellphone videos of light-armored vehicles plowing down dark streets to control pockets of protesters who set up burning barricades in several neighborhoods.

The opposition said they have no intention of pulling back on protests demanding new elections that were triggered when the government-stacked Supreme Court three weeks ago gutted congress of its last vestiges of power, a move that was later reversed amid a storm of international criticism.

Protesters are angry at what they see as a government that has essentially become a dictatorship responsible for triple-digit inflation, rising crime and food shortages.

“Twenty days of resistance and we feel newly born,” said opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara during an evening, outdoor press conference as residents looking out from balconies in an eastern Caracas neighborhood at the heart of the protest movement cheered loudly in support.

The next planned protest is Saturday, when opponents are being asked to dress in white and march silently to commemorate the victims of the demonstration. There’s also a sit-in to block major highways planned for Monday.

General Motors announced early Thursday that it was closing its operations in Venezuela after authorities seized its factory in the industrial city of Valencia, a move that could draw the Trump administration into the escalating chaos engulfing the nation.

A number of major Latin American governments, including Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, called on Venezuela to take steps to increase democratic order and halt the violence that has been swirling around the protests. Across the country, clashes have been intense as protests grow in size and fervor.

The Supreme Court ruling reinvigorated Venezuela’s fractious opposition, which had been struggling to channel growing disgust with Maduro over widespread food shortages, triple-digit inflation and rampant crime.

Opponents are pushing for Maduro’s removal through early elections and the release of dozens of political prisoners. The government last year abruptly postponed regional elections that the opposition was heavily favored to win and it cut off a petition drive aimed at forcing a referendum seeking Maduro’s removal before elections scheduled for late next year.

But the government hasn’t backed down.

Already drawing criticism for the GM seizure, Maduro announced late Thursday that he wanted an investigation into cellphone operator Movistar for allegedly being part of the “coup-minded march” organized by his adversaries Wednesday. That march was the largest and most dramatic the country has seen in years. He said the subsidiary of Spain’s Telefonica “sent millions of messages to users every two hours” in support of Wednesday’s protests.

As tensions mount, the government is using its almost-complete control of Venezuela’s institutions to pursue its opponents. On Wednesday alone, 565 protesters were arrested nationwide, according to Penal Forum, a local group that provides legal assistance to detainees. It said 334 remained in jail Thursday.

Associated Press photographer Juan Carlos Hernandez in Valencia, AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit, and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

More Associated Press reporting on Venezuela’s problems can be found at https://www.ap.org/explore/venezuela-undone . </s> CARACAS, April 21 (Reuters) - Eight people were electrocuted to death during a looting incident in Caracas, a firefighter said on Friday, amid violent protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by opponents accusing him of seeking to create a dictatorship.

The accident occurred when a group of looters broke into a bakery in the working class neighborhood of El Valle, according the firefighter, who asked not be identified. It was not immediately possible to confirm details of the incident with hospital or other officials.

The public prosecutor's office said later on Friday it was investigating 11 deaths in El Valle, adding that "some" victims had died from being electrocuted.

Nine other people have been killed in violence associated with a wave of anti-government demonstrations in the past three weeks in which protesters have clashed with security forces in melees lasting well into the night.

"Yesterday around 9 or 10 (p.m.)things got pretty scary, a group of people carrying weapons came down ... and started looting," said Hane Mustafa, owner of a small supermarket in El Valle, where broken bottles of soy sauce and ketchup littered the floor between bare shelves.

"The security situation is not in the hands of the government. We lost everything here," said Mustafa, who said he could hear the looting from his home, which is adjacent to the store.

Dozens of businesses in the area showed signs of looting, ranging from empty shelves to broken windows and twisted metal entrance gates.

The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Security forces patrolled much of Caracas on Friday, including El Valle.

Maduro's government is so far resisting the pressure of the most serious protests in three years as opposition leaders push a series of political demands, drawing support from a public angered by the country's collapsing economy.

Ruling Socialist Party leaders describe the protesters as hoodlums who are damaging public property and disrupting public order to overthrow the government with the support of ideological adversaries in Washington.

"This wounded and failed opposition is trying to generate chaos in key areas of the city and convince the world that we're in some sort of civil war, the same playbook used for Syria, for Libya and for Iraq," said Socialist Party official Freddy Bernal in an internet broadcast at 1:00 a.m.

Opposition leaders have promised to keep up their protests, demanding that Maduro's government call general elections, free almost 100 jailed opposition activists and respect the autonomy of the opposition-led Congress.

They are calling for community-level protests across the country on Friday, a white-clad "silent" march in Caracas on Saturday to commemorate those killed in the unrest, and a nationwide "sit-in" blocking Venezuela's main roads on Monday.

Daniela Alvarado, 25, who sells vegetables in the El Valle area, said the looting on Thursday night began after police officers fired tear gas and buckshot at demonstrators blocking a street with burning tires.

"People starting looting the businesses and yelling that they were hungry and that they want the government out," said Alvarado. "We're afraid (the stores) are going to run out of everything, that tomorrow there won't be any food."

Separately, a man was killed by a gunshot in the Caracas slum of Petare on Thursday night, municipal mayor Carlos Ocariz said on Friday.

The OPEC nation's economy has been in free-fall since the collapse of oil prices in 2014. The generous oil-financed welfare state created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Maduro's predecessor, has given way to a Soviet-style economy marked by consumer shortages, triple-digit inflation and snaking supermarket lines.

Many Venezuelans say they have to skip meals in order to feed their children.

Public anger at the situation spilled over last month when the Supreme Court, which is seen as close to the government, briefly assumed the powers of the Congress. The protests were further fueled when the government barred the opposition's best-known leader, two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, from holding public office. (Additional reporting by Carlos Garcia and Brian Ellsworth; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Frances Kerry) </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.
The birthplace of late President Hugo Chávez is burned by protesters as violence and looting spreads through Barinas, Venezuela following the death of a protester.