The 22-year old Miss Turismo, 2013, Genesis Carmona, was shot in the city of Valencia Tuesday in an anti-government protest.
She was pronounced dead on Wednesday afternoon at a local hospital, making her death the fifth during the country’s ongoing political turmoil.
The beauty queen was also a student demonstrator, as well as the winner of the 2013 Miss Tourism crown in Carabobo, representing her state at Miss Tourism Venezuela.
“How long are we going to live like this? How long do we have to tolerate this pressure, with them killing us?” a relative, who asked not to be named, said. “She only needed one more semester to graduate.”
Carmona was a beautiful brunette who had been studying tourism before her death, according to the relative.
The 22-year old model suffered a gunshot wound to the head as a result of the anti-government protests held Feb. 18, according to several media reports, including “Venezuela al Dia.”
Tuesday’s demonstration was part of a rally outside the imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez, a Harvard-educated economist, who has lead and initiated the three weeks of demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
Since the political uprising, three other people have been shot dead in Caracas and another person was run over by a car during a demonstration in the coastal town of Carupano.
Opposition leader Lopez, while behind bars Wednesday, urged his supporters to keep fighting for the departure of the socialist government.
The demonstrators are requesting better security, an end to shortages of goods, and protection for freedom of speech.
Some citizens blame Venezuela’s government, led by President Nicolas Maduro, for the problems the country faces. Maduro is facing the largest anti-government protests in his 11 months in power. He has called opposition members fascists and compared them to an infection that needs to be cured.
Lopez is in prison and faces charges of terrorism and murder in the deaths of four anti-government protesters and a government supporter in clashes nationwide. He was targeted because he organized these protests.
The charges against Lopez “smack of a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country,” Amnesty International said in a prepared statement.
It is a crime when lives are lost when speaking up for injustice.
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