Venezuelan inmates protest prison shootings, demand director's removal

Flames rose from the roof of the Internado Judicial de Barinas, or Injuba, as inmates turned a prison grievance into a public indictment of Venezuela’s detention system. On Sunday, May 24, 2026, prisoners climbed above the western Venezuela facility and piled flaming mattresses, demanding the removal of director Elvis Macuare Guerrero after accusing guards of opening fire on unarmed men.

The protest was framed by the inmates as a peaceful action that turned violent when prison staff shot at them and left some wounded. A video shared by the Venezuelan Prison Observatory showed one prisoner with a bullet wound in his chest, a stark image that pushed the clash beyond Barinas and into the broader debate over how Venezuela’s prisons are run, who answers for abuses, and who is left without any remedy when force is used behind bars.

The complaints extended well past the shooting allegation. Inmates said prison staff had taken away their clothes, barred them from receiving visits and pressured them to sell drugs. Family members outside the prison said they heard screams and explosions minutes after arriving and clashed with National Guard officers as they tried unsuccessfully to enter the facility. The standoff underscored how quickly a dispute inside Injuba had become a confrontation involving guards, families and state security forces.

Guerrero had been appointed only about a week before the protest, and inmates blamed his arrival for a sharp escalation in abuse. They accused the new administration of violent searches, torture and beatings, turning the roof demonstration into a demand not only for relief, but for accountability from the prison leadership itself. In a system where complaints appear to vanish inside the same walls they target, the roof became the only place inmates could force themselves to be seen.

The Barinas protest also fit into a wider record of rights abuses in Venezuela. Human Rights Watch said in April 2025 that authorities and pro-government armed groups committed widespread abuses after the July 28, 2024 election, including killings, torture, arbitrary detention and forced disappearances. The U.S. Department of State said a United Nations fact-finding mission concluded that at least 25 people died in the first days of post-election protests, including two children. Against that backdrop, allegations that prison guards shot inmates in Barinas add another chapter to the country’s deeper crisis of violence, impunity and official silence.