Violence overwhelms the regime in Venezuela

In the Venezuela governed by Nicolás Maduro there are no truly official homicide figures. The 2021 Global Peace Index assured that the country became the least safe in the entire region. However, the absolute control exercised by the repressive forces of the state means that the surveys cannot be thorough. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has exercised even more dominance and censorship over information.

In 2018, the U.S. based business Gallup said Venezuela was the most violent country in the world. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of murders evidenced by the polls was close to reaching 30,000 cases respectively and each year more than 5,000 executions were at the hands of police and military forces affected by the dictatorship.

Collapse of the morgue

Although there is no reliable data, there are facts that define an out-of-control situation. The National Headquarters of Medicine and Forensic Science in Caracas is overwhelmed with corpses. The rotten smell speaks for itself, as described by witnesses. Morgue personnel are prohibited from giving statements to the press.

The Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia (OVV), a private organization independent from the government, conducted a study obtained through rather limited monitoring. This year it focused only on cases reported in the media in Caracas and in 13 of Venezuela's 23 states.

Police cause one out of every three registered deaths

The findings determined that 950 murders were recorded during the first half of this year. Among the bloody toll, 330 deaths were caused by the country's police forces between January and June.

Deaths due to intentional homicides make for a total of 620 victims, an alarming figure that is surpassed by the number of assaults registered by the OVV which total 739 cases.

The OVV explains that most of the events occurred in situations linked to criminal actions. This is followed by conflicts in private or family settings. The Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia was not able to determine the sex of the deceased in all cases. "The 472 homicides for which it was possible to know the age and sex of the victims show that 84% (397) of the victims are men. The young adult (25 to 29 years) and youth (20 - 24) age groups show the highest frequencies," describes the report.

In addition to these murders, another 1,543 crimes of interpersonal violence were recorded, including sexual assaults, the victims of which are mostly women, in many cases young girls and teenagers.