As we have earlier reported, Venezuela is not a great place to be right now. The latest casualty of the conflict between anti-government protestors and police authorities is student and beauty queen Génesis Carmona, who died in the city of Valencia shortly after being shot in the head by an unidentified gunman. The 22 year old was quickly picked up and rushed to hospital on a bystander’s motorbike. However, they didn’t arrive there soon enough and after emergency surgery she died. It is believed the gunman was shooting at anti-government protestors as part of the violence which has escalated since protests against Nicolás Maduro’s government have been met with force from the Venezuelan authorities.
Génesis was a marketing student who won the title of Miss Tourism in her home state of Carabobo. As we saw in BBC3’s *Extreme Beauty Queens *programme, beauty pageants are huge in a country where they provide an escape from the harsh realities of the everyday. The protesters are angry at the government precisely because of the high level of violence of the country; 24,763 people were murdered in 2013. That’s a homicide rate of 79 per 100,000 people. Compare that to the UK’s homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000, and you get an idea of how bad things are over there. There are also issues with goods shortages and media censorship, which has been prevalent under the 15-year socialist rule. The one TV channel that was reporting on the anti-government protests has been taken off air by the government – so it's unlikely that much of the country will find out about Génesis’s death.
Her family are devastated by the news: 'How long are we going to live like this? How long do we have to tolerate this pressure, with them killing us?’ a relative told Reuters. ‘She only needed one more semester to graduate.’
Génesis is the fifth person to die in the protests, yet opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has called for people to continue fighting. In a pre-recorded video, to be released upon his arrest, he says: ‘Today more than ever, our cause has to be the exit of this government. The exit from this disaster, the exit of this group of people who have kidnapped the future of Venezuelans is in your hands. Let's fight. I will be doing so.’
*To get a run-down of exactly what's going on in Venezeula, you'd do well to check out this woman's video of her take on the conflict. We've also interviewed Laura Solorzana, a 27-year-old who is taking part in the anti-government protests and we've done an in-depth piece on the violent reality young women face in Caracas. *
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.