Inflation, corruption, criminality: For days going students and opposition supporters in many cities of Venezuela on the road. The number of deaths is increased to at least nine. Fierce criticism of Socialist dictator Maduro comes from US Secretary of State Kerry.

The number of people killed in the protests in Venezuela has risen to at least nine to Saturday. The latest victim was a 29-year-old who had come to a road blockade by protesters killed, Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres said on Friday evening in the official broadcasting VTV.

In many cities of Venezuela students protest and other opposition supporters in two weeks against the high inflation, widespread corruption and rampant crime in the country . It always came back to clashes with security forces . Three of at least nine victims had gunshot wounds , according to the prosecutor’s office. Of the 137 injured are about a hundred civilians.

Only on Friday, President Nicolás Maduro had sent a battalion of paratroopers in the city of San Cristóbal in the west of the country. The soldiers should secure the entrances to the capital of the state of Táchira , said Interior Minister Rodríguez .

US Secretary of State John Kerry accused the leftist government of Maduro an ” unacceptable ” use of force against the protests. Thus, democracies do not behave , he said. The citizens have a right to protest . He called on the government in Caracas, instead, to negotiate with the opposition and release political prisoners .

Maduro , however, referred to the protests as the attempted coup and threatened with the imposition of emergency rule in Táchira . He suspects a conspiracy of the United States behind the riots. The protests had taken in San Cristóbal their debut after it had come to the university campus for the attempted rape of a female student .

The relations between the U.S. and Venezuela are already heavily loaded. President Maduro had his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama invited to the foreign press on Friday for bilateral dialogue. Obama should “accept challenge” which, he said, offering in addition to to send an ambassador to Washington. Kerry did not respond to the offer of talks from Caracas.

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