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Venezuelan Beauty Queen Shot In Violent Protests

by Camille Bautista

The latest victim in Venezuela's recent string of violent protests is a local beauty queen. 22-year-old Genesis Carmona, crowned Miss Turismo in 2013, died after being shot in the head Tuesday during a demonstration in the city of Valencia. Carmona is the fifth and most high-profile fatality in a spat of violence in Venezuela that follows anti-government protests in the country.

The political turmoil is heating up in Venezuela, and the death toll from recent protests continues to rise. Three people have been shot dead in Caracas, and another run over by a car in Carupano, since the unrest escalated this week. Tensions are bursting at the seams among protesters, following elevated crime rates, shortages of goods, and rising prices.

On Tuesday in Valencia, unidentified gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the demonstrating group, who'd been rallying against the imprisonment of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. Carmona, a model and college student, had retweeted opposition supporters in the last month, with one post explaining how to navigate online if the government cut Internet access.

Photos circulated online following Carmona's death, showing what appears to be her body being carried away by a man on a motorcycle. Carmona's tragic death follows swiftly on the heels of another violent incident, in which former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and her ex-husband were killed while on vacation.

Lopez, of the opposition Popular Will party, turned himself in to security forces on Tuesday and was arrested on charges of inciting violence.