Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 31, 2017 / 14:50 pm
When asked by a reporter about the threat of civil war in his country, Archbishop Ubaldo Santana of Maracaibo responded starkly: "there is already a bloodbath of considerable proportions in Venezuela."
"We're talking about 30,000 people murdered a year, and if we don't manage to find peaceful ways to understand each other, that number can increase," he said in a recent interview.
Archbishop Santana, the former head of the Venezuelan bishops' conference, made his remarks to the Alpha and Omega news weekly during a visit to Spain, in which he discussed various issues related to the grave crisis affecting Venezuela.
In the wake of Nicolas Maduro succeeding former socialist president Hugo Chavez after the latter died from cancer in 2013, the country has been marred by violence and social upheaval.