A Venezuelan judge has jailed 10 police officers suspected of killing two indigenous people during a food protest last month, prosecutors have said.
The officers were charged with responsibility for the deaths of the two men in the northeastern town of Tucupita on September 22.
The prosecutor's office said yesterday that police had fired on a crowd of around 200 protesters demanding the sale of subsidised food in their community as part of a government program to alleviate food shortages caused by Venezuela's acute economic crisis.
One of the victims was shot in the head and the other in the chest, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. Both victims belonged to the Warao ethnic group.
An adult and three indigenous youths were injured in the incident.
The officers are in custody awaiting trial since Monday at state police headquarters in Tucupita.
President Nicolas Maduro launched a subsidised food sale program in April 2016 to counter soaring inflation and crippling food shortages, but critics have complained that distribution is intermittent.
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