Venezuela: Protests erupt one week after US forces captured Maduro

Maduro

Several hundred supporters of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro staged protests in the capital Saturday, a week after his capture by US forces, as the interim government moved to revive ties with Washington and slowly released some prisoners.

Waving flags and placards with the face of the mustachioed ex-leader and his wife Cilia, around 1,000 protesters rallied in the west of Caracas and a few hundred in the eastern Petare district — far smaller than demonstrations Maduro’s camp has mustered in the past.

“I’ll march as often as I have to until Nicolas and Cilia come back,” demonstrator Soledad Rodriguez, 69, said of the presidential couple who were taken by US forces to New York to face trial on drug-trafficking charges.

“I trust blindly that they will come back — they have been kidnapped.” Punch