Venezuela more dangerous than a war zone

Sunday Telegraph:

The number of victims was up by 12 per cent from last year when there were 19,336 deaths, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory said in its annual report.

High profile killings included that of a three year-old child, Edgar Torres, who was fired on 10 times while he was asleep in bed, after a gunman had come in to kill a teenage relative.

In August more than 20 people were killed in a battle between two heavily armed groups inside the Yare I prison. More than 300 prisoners died in Venezuelan jails in the first half of the year.

The Mexican ambassador Carlos Pujalte and his wife were seized from their car in a wealthy area of Caracas and held for several hours before being released alive in a slum in January.

Unlike other Latin American countries Venezuela is not involved in a drug war or on-going battle with guerrillas.

But according to the Observatory, a think tank set up by public and private universities, it now has a murder rate of 73 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 67 in 2011.

The rate is well above neighbouring Colombia, and Mexico which has been engaged in a bloody drug war, and is closing in on Honduras, the country with the highest murder rate.

There are more murders in Venezuela than in the United States and the 27 countries of the European Union combined. In Caracas the murder rate is more than 200 per 100,000 inhabitants.

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Hugo has created a paradise for homicides.  Just for a frame of reference total NATO casualties in over 11 years of war in Afghanistan is  3,245.  Coalition casualties in operation Iraqi Freedom were 4,804.

The Chavez regime has been a failure when it comes to the safety of Venezuelan people.