MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Three more fatal shootings in Venezuela raise the death toll to 25

Protests in Venezuela have been ongoing for a month with no indications of a truce or a lowering of tension

Protesters battled soldiers on Wednesday in the streets of Caracas again as three more fatal shootings raised to 25 the death toll from a month of demonstrations against Venezuela's populist government.

 Thousands of supporters and foes of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were on the capital's streets for rival rallies marking a month since the first bloodshed of the recent unrest and clashes in oil-rich Venezuela.

Trouble began when National Guard troops blocked opposition marchers trying to break out of Plaza Venezuela to reach the state ombudsman's office. Students threw stones and petrol bombs while security forces fired tear gas and turned water cannons on them.

Elsewhere, in central Carabobo state, a student, a middle-aged man and an army captain were shot dead in the latest fatalities from now-daily clashes around the South American nation of 29 million people.

Opposition activists blamed armed government supporters for shooting the student near his home in Valencia city, but the state governor said the shot came from snipers among protesters.

A 42-year-old man died during the same disturbances, shot while painting his house, the local mayor said. In the third killing, an army captain died from a gunshot during a clash with “terrorist criminals”, government officials said.

The government of Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver who won election last year to succeed the late Hugo Chavez, has declared victory over an attempted 'coup' against him and seems in little danger of being toppled by a 'Venezuelan Spring'.

But student radicals are vowing to keep the protests going, meaning protracted instability could bring more bloodshed and act as a further drag on Venezuela's already troubled economy.