© Meridith KohutQueues foreveryday items are commonplace.
The melee at the store in Sabaneta, the birthplace of former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was the latest such incident in the South American nation where economic hardship and food shortages are creating long queues and scuffles.
The opposition Democratic Unity coalition said Maria Aguirre died and another 75 people were injured - including five security officials - in chaotic scenes when National Guard troops sought to control a 5,000-strong crowd with teargas.
"Due to the shortage of food ... the desperation is enormous," local opposition politician Andres Camejo said, according to the coalition's website. It published a photo of an elderly woman's body lying inert on a concrete floor.
Camejo said thieves had also attacked the crowd, members of which were seeking to buy cheap food on offer at an outlet of the state's Mercal supermarket chain in Barinas state.
© Meridith KohutEmpty shelves in a privately owned pharmacy where toilet paper, laundry detergent and sanitary pads should be.
El Universal newspaper reported that Aguirre was knocked to the ground during jostling in the crowd, while the pro-opposition El Nacional said she was crushed in a stampede.
Another person was killed and dozens detained following looting of supermarkets in Venezuela's southeastern city of Ciudad Guayana earlier this month.
President Nicolas Maduro accuses opponents of deliberately stirring up trouble, exaggerating incidents, and sabotaging the economy to try and bring down his socialist government.
Critics, though, say incidents of unrest are symptoms of the increasing hardships Venezuela's 29 million people are facing due to a failed state-led economic model. Low oil prices are exacerbating economic tensions in the OPEC nation.
Source: Reuters
You gotta feel for Maduro, he isn't Chavez, so he hasn't earned the 'love' of the poor people, nor the respect of the other branches of govt, media etc, which, even if friendly, aren't going to go out of their way to support him. He hasn't the necessary training for the job and needs to bring in those in his 'camp' that do or this will turn into a colored revolution if Washington has their way, another reason for their support of the House of Saud's takedown on the oil price... which will soon turn against them as well, but that's in the future, so they probably aren't giving it enough respect, like Saddam and so many others. They simple lack the knowledge and experience for their positions against the imperial West. I will give him cudos in his Colombia border issue that Washington has been pushing as well, and another inherited problem that Chavez left him. Maduro needs help.