At least one person has died in renewed violence in Venezuela, as thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro staged sit-ins and roadblocks across the country in a seventh week of anti-government rallies.
Luis Alviarez, 18, was killed during protests in the western state of Tachira after being shot by gunfire in the thorax, prosecutors said, without giving further details. That brought the death toll since the start of the protests to at least 39 people.
At least one person has died in renewed violence in Venezuela, as thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro staged sit-ins and roadblocks across the country in a seventh week of anti-government rallies.
Luis Alviarez, 18, was killed during protests in the western state of Tachira after being shot by gunfire in the thorax, prosecutors said, without giving further details. That brought the death toll since the start of the protests to at least 39 people.
Escalating crisis
The protests that erupted after the government-stacked Supreme Court issued a ruling March 29 nullifying the opposition-controlled National Assembly, a decision it later reversed amid a storm of domestic and international criticism.
The government is also setting up a controversial body called a constituent assembly, with authority to rewrite the constitution and shake up public powers.
Maduro says that is needed to bring peace to Venezuela, but opponents view it as a cynical tactic to buy time and create a biased body that could perpetuate the socialists' rule.
"There's a real situation of crisis in the country, and the opposition says they will not give up until elections are called," Al Jazeera's John Holman, reporting from Cucuta, in Venezuela's border with Colombia, said.
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