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

Inmates at Barinas prison allege they were peacefully protesting when prison staff opened fire, leaving some wounded

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, who 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.