Stories from a community abused by Venezuelan security forces
On the night of April 20, 2022, hundreds of heavily armed police and military officials descended on the municipality of Altagracia de Orituco in the central Venezuelan state of Guarico with orders to hunt down the Tren del Llano gang and its collaborators in what the government labeled Operación Trueno – Operation Thunder. But instead of directly confronting the gang, they rampaged through the region, terrorizing and traumatizing the population.
In the months that followed, lawyers from the human rights organization Defiende Venezuela traveled the region documenting evidence of the abuses committed by the security forces and taking witness testimonies from their victims. The following stories are based on those testimonies.
