Venezuela: battle in the streets of Caracas between police and armed gangs

ROME. “It’s like being at war”: this is how some residents describe the situation in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, where a battle is underway in the streets between the police, who are carrying out an offensive against organized crime, and armed gangs who resist. The battle, which has intensified in the last few hours, so far has no official death toll, even if eyewitnesses speak – cited by the BBC – of at least ten deaths. The police operation began when 800 agents were mobilized in the neighborhoods where narcos crime rages, who are trying to expand the controlled territory: agents who – writes the BBC – have started a “house by house” operation. The police “are making progress in dismantling the criminal structures that have settled in these territories with the intention of sowing terror,” said Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Carmen Meléndez. Meléndez also said that some people who had been kidnapped by the gangs were released in the operation and that the agents will remain on the territory for as long as necessary to carry out the mission. The government has also offered a bounty of $ 500,000 to anyone who will provide useful information for the capture of criminal bosses.