At least 29 inmates killed in clashes at Venezuela jail
Caracas: At least 29 prisoners were killed and 19 police wounded in clashes at a jail in western Venezuela Friday, authorities said.
The ncident at the police station jail in the town of Acarigua, in Portuguesa state, occurred when police special forces (FAES) tried to stop a "massive prison break" which resulted in the deaths of 29 inmates, according to Portuguesa public security secretary Oscar Valero.
The prisoners received the officers with "a hail of gunfire" while detonating three grenades, which injured 19 police, Valero told reporters.
The Una Ventana a la Libertad NGO, which defends prisoner rights, gave a preliminary toll of 25 dead.
NGO director Carlos Nieto said the clashes broke out when the FAES attempted to rescue visitors who had been taken hostage Thursday by the "pran" -- the leader of the inmates -- at the jail.
"This morning (authorities) sent the FAES and there was a clash. The detainees had weapons, they shot at the police. Apparently they also detonated two grenades," Nieto told AFP.
The inmates' leader, Wilfredo Ramos, was one of those killed, according to an internal police report.
The report, quoted by the NGO, said several officers were wounded by "shrapnel and explosives." The prisons ministry did not comment on the incident, saying police station jails are not under its control.
A video shared on social media shows an inmate -- believed to be Ramos -- with his face partly covered while brandishing a pistol and what appears to be grenades, and threatening two women.
"It's our lives (on the line) and those of the visitors here," he says, as a woman pleads for help, while warning the police to stay out because "I'm prepared to die." Nieto said the inmates were demanding "food and to be transferred to prisons," and had denounced police "abuses." No information was given about the fate of the hostages.
Violence is a problem in such detention facilities, where inmates are supposed to be held for a maximum of 48 hours, Una Ventana a la Libertad said.
There are around 500 of them in the country, holding 55,000 people even though their total capacity is just 8,000, the NGO added. The Acarigua jail has capacity for 60 inmates but was holding 500, according to the police report.
These provisional detention centers "are not suitable to hold inmates for more than 48 hours," said Nieto.
He said the prison system as a whole is "chaotic" and blamed the prisons ministry for "not fulfilling its functions." Venezuela has one of the worst records for prison violence in the region.
In March 2018, 68 inmates died in a fire at a police jail in the northern city of Valencia. And in August 2017, a riot at a facility in the southern Amazonas state left 37 prisoners dead.
More than 400 people are believed to have been killed in Venezuelan jails since 2011, while human rights organizations also say they face a lack of food and medicines -- like much of the country -- while the facilities are beset by corruption.
"For how long are Venezuelan prisoners in the state's hands going to die?" said Humberto Prado, director of the Venezuelan Prisoners Observatory NGO, who branded Friday's events a "massacre.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
