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For 24 days...since 17 June...more than 800 inmates have been trapped inside the El Rodeo II prison outside of Caracas...without electricity... and with only a little food and water.
The prisoners refuse to let guards in fearing a massacre like one alleged at the nearby Rodeo I prison...where perhaps 66 prison inmate died.
The prison riots were THE news in Venezuela...until President Chavez's surgery was announced.
“When the president got sick it was like somebody threw a blanket over all the country’s problems and now that’s all they talk about,” said a prisoner's relative. “They’ve forgotten about us.”