Venezuela inmates occupy prison roof and set fire to mattresses to protest alleged abuses

Inmates at Venezuela’s western Barinas prison staged a protest on its roof on Sunday, piling flaming mattresses and calling for the removal of the facility’s director, whom they accused of overseeing guards as they shot unarmed prisoners.

“We want justice. They are shooting us, the guards and the wardens,” a prisoner said in a video shared by the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a local NGO, on X, in which a man is seen with a bullet wound in his chest.

Inmates said they were peacefully protesting when prison staff opened fire and left some wounded.

Venezuelan authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.

Large columns of smoke from burning mattresses and sheets rose from the prison, about 500km (310 miles) from Caracas, as inmates gathered on the roof, chanting, “No more torture!” and hanging “SOS” banners.

Prisoners called for the removal of the prison’s director in videos shared by the observatory. They said their clothes had been taken away and they had been banned from receiving visits.

Inmates’ family members clashed outside with National Guard officers, armed with riot shields, as they unsuccessfully attempted to stop them from entering the prison. They told the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons they heard screams and explosions minutes afterwards.

Yelitza Arrollo told the AFP news agency that she has not heard from her son, an inmate at the prison, since 8 May. “They are suffering,” she said outside the prison. “We want the director removed.”

The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons said it was documenting the events and reporting them to human rights watchdogs. It said about 1,200 men and more than 100 women incarcerated at the prison had joined the strike.

Venezuelan prisons have come under international scrutiny after the government of the interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, passed a law to release hundreds of people considered political prisoners. In January, the US attacked Caracas and captured the then president, Nicolás Maduro.