A burn victim has died of injuries sustained in a protest against President Nicolas Maduro, becoming the 65th fatality in more than two months of anti- government demonstrations, a prosecutor has said.
Orlando Figuera, 22, died of injuries he sustained May 20, the prosecutor's office said on Twitter. The protests have been raging almost daily since April 1.
"He was the victim of an attack by fascists ... A hate crime," Maduro said yesterday on his weekly TV show blaming national assembly speaker Julio Borges, one of the leaders of the protests.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles in turn said all Venezuelans wanted justice for "Orlando and all the dead and wounded. The main guilty party: Nicolas Maduro."
Demonstrators blame Maduro, an elected socialist due to serve through January 2019, for the country's economic collapse as he has aligned it ever more closely with the communist-led Cuban model.
Maduro wants to hold elections for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, and yesterday he proposed July 30 as the date for the voting.
Critics say he will stack such a body with his allies as part of a ploy to cling to power.
That proposed date must be approved by the Supreme Electoral Council.
Cuba is Caracas' closest ally. Venezuela, used to spending its huge oil wealth freely, has seen its revenues shrink due to sharply lower crude prices.
About 9.6 million Venezuelans -- almost a third of the population -- eat two meals a day or fewer, according to a study by a group of universities.
Maduro however says that poverty in 2016 fell from 19.7 percent of the population to 18.3 percent, and extreme poverty from 4.9 to 4.4 percent.
Elected in 2013, Maduro is resisting opposition calls for early elections to remove him.
The opposition blames him for severe food and medicine shortages in the oil-rich nation.
He says the crisis is a US-backed conspiracy.
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