Prosecutors confirm 25 dead in protests against election results

Caracas, Aug 12 (EFE).- Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Monday that during protests against the official result of the presidential election, which ratified Nicolás Maduro’s victory, 25 deaths were recorded, which he attributed to “instrumentalized criminal groups.”

“We can say that, so far, all these deaths can be attributed to criminal groups instrumentalized by the so-called ‘comanditos’,” said Saab in an event broadcast by the state channel VTV, in reference to the citizen organization structures that formed, during the electoral campaign, the largest opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD).

According to the prosecutor, most of the deaths occurred in Caracas and Aragua state, with a total of seven fatalities in each, and also in Bolívar, Yaracuy, Nueva Esparta, Lara, Miranda, Táchira and Zulia, although he did not detail the figures by region.

Until August 2nd, According to Saab, some 192 people were injured in protestsof which “97 belong to state security forces.”

On Monday, the UN Fact-Finding Mission in Venezuela demanded that Venezuelan authorities “immediately stop the repression and ‘thoroughly investigate the avalanche of serious human rights violations that are occurring,'” according to a statement from the organization.

“According to experts, the State has created a climate of widespread fear that has led to 23 documented deaths between 28 July and 8 August, most of them from gunfire. In 18 cases, the victims were men under 30 years of age,” the UN press release said.

Mission President Marta Valiñas also said that the allegations “must be investigated and that if abuse of force by security forces or pro-government armed civilians is confirmed, there must be accountability.”

The government said it had received citizen reports with details about 22 of the 25 deaths reported by the Attorney General’s Office, through a digital application created by the Venezuelan State.

Political tension has skyrocketed following the presidential elections, as the PUD claims that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the elections by a wide margin and published “83.5%” of the electoral records to support its claim.

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