Due to the violent unrest in Venezuela, three policemen were seriously injured

The misery and the little respect for human rights that mark daily life in Venezuela has not escaped the conditions in which its prisons are kept. And that situation led this Sunday to a violent riot that caused serious injuries to three policemen.

almost 50 prisoners crammed into a dungeon from a Bolivarian National Police (PNB) station located in Los Guayos, Carabobo state, took the three agents hostage and “seriously assaulted” them amid a fierce protest, according to an NGO defending the rights of prisoners.

“The riot was led by 47 inmates in one of the five cells of its police headquarters where there must be a maximum of 10 peopleCarolina Girón, director of the Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP), a critic of the Nicolás Maduro regime, told the AFP news agency.

Detainees at this PNB police station, located about 160 km from Caracas, are denouncing human rights violations and procedural delays, according to Girón.

the chaos originated after the death of an inmate on Saturday“who likely died due to lack of medical care,” the NGO later detailed.

In videos broadcast on social networks one of the police officers was noticed glued to the dungeon bars of some of the prisoners, who threatened him with a knife to the back of his head. One of the officers allegedly sustained wounds to his ear.

The detainees “released three abducted police officers,” who were taken to a hospital, the NGO said.

One of the officers was “checked with multiple trauma and fracture of the skulland all three are in a delicate state of health, ”the observatory said.

“The inmates decided to take the three policemen to defend themselves because they are fed up with this guard, they are being mistreated, the relatives are being mistreated. Yesterday the inmates started calling because one of the inmates had sugar (diabetes) .None of the policemen wanted to help the prisoner, until they took him out and threw him in the corridor.The man died, and they are now. they were angry, because he died because of the police“, exposed at a press conference a relative of one of the mutinous men.

crowded jails

The OVP estimates that Venezuelan jails are overcrowded, at 148% capacity.

“Venezuela it has a capacity for 20,000 inmates and in prisons there are 32,000while in the police cells there are about 35,000 detainees, “Girón said. In the Los Guayos cells, he added,” there are 251 inmates and the structure has five cells, which should be a maximum for 40 people and there are 251many sleeping standing “.

During the night hours this Sunday, about 70 prisoners were transferred to the Tocuyito jail, also in Carabobo, as part of the agreement to release the kidnapped agents, the NGO added.

The pretrial detention centers they are not designed to house inmates for more than 72 hours.

“And there are people out there who are even serving sentences,” Girón warned. “If family members don’t bring them food, those people don’t eat. They also depend on the medications they can give you. Without water, they don’t pick up trash … “

The government has repeatedly promised a “humanization” of prisons, which until now has not been carried out.

On May 1, 2020, in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, approximately 47 inmates died after a riot in a prison in Portuguesa (west). A year earlier, in the same state, another 29 inmates had died in a riot at a police station.

On December 31, 2019, another violent event left 10 dead in Cabimas (Zulia, northwest).

Venezuelan authorities did not comment on Sunday’s event.

With information from the AFP

DB