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Maracaibo.- The Commission for Human Rights of the state of Zulia (Codhez by its initials in spanish) released its bulletin regarding the documentation of the acts of violence in which security officials of the Venezuelan State are involved, and that have led to the death of at least 240 people from January to June of this year in Zulia.

In the tracking carried out in the media of the region, at least 182 violent acts with police intervention are recorded, leaving 240 people dead: 239 qualified as alleged criminals and an official.

In 126 of the 182 violent acts (69.23%) some national security body was involved, 41 corresponded to police operations with the participation of a regional police body (22.53%), and in 19, municipal security bodies were involved (10.44%). In some of these cases, the security forces acted together.

In this sense, the Special Actions Forces of the Bolivarian National Police (FAES by its initials in spanish) are the national body that accumulates the most violent actions, participating in 46 with a 25 percentage incidence, followed by the Civil and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC by its initials in spanish) with 32 violent acts (17%). Likewise, among regional security forces involved in violent acts, the CPBEZ (police of Zulia) which participated in 26 with an incidence of 14.29%, stood out.

In relation to the territorial overview, Maracaibo is the municipality with the most acts of police violence (28.72%), followed by San Francisco (13.19%), Cabimas and Jesús Enrique Lossada, -both with 7.14%, and then, Lagunillas and La Cañada de Urdaneta-both with 6.04%.

Over the age ranges, 89.74% of the people who died in violent acts in which the police were involved were 35 years of age or younger. Of those with data, the largest group are young people 25 years of age or younger, representing half of the cases (50.42%).

In line with the provisions of the Report on Venezuela of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, Codhez believes that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that many of these deaths constitute extrajudicial executions perpetrated by security forces, in particular by the FAES police command.”

Since 2018, a policy was developed in Zulia that followed the structure and discourse of the Operation for the Liberation and Protection of the People. That is, with justification in the grave circumstances of citizen insecurity, actions have been taken consisting of searches, arbitrary detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions.

In the Annual Report on the general human rights situation of the Zulia state of 2018, the non-governmental organization warned that at least 279 people were killed by police and / or military commissions in alleged clashes. In this sense, Codhez urges the Venezuelan State to comply with its obligations of prevention, investigation, sanction and integral reparation to the victims of violations and due diligence.