By Nataly Angulo
The Zulia state school district is intervening in and investigating the Maria Moñitos grade school in the oil-rich state, only one week after pupils, their relatives, and teachers picketed the house of the governor, Omar Prieto, to protest for having six months without electricity.
Venezuela is in a humanitarian crisis, worsened by frequent interruptions in water and electricity service with Zulia being one of the most affected states.
School principal Anabel Perez is the key subject in the investigation, sources told El Pitazo.
The district ordered the school to keep students inside classrooms until noon, and not to send them home at 10:30 a.m. on account of the excruciating heat, teachers had been doing since electricity stopped. The pupils range in age from three to six years old.
You must read: Three killed in El Callao gold mine disaster: rescuers
“It’s infrahuman to keep a kid thereafter 11:30 in the morning,” said Adriana Vera to El Pitazo. “I think it is irresponsible of the Ministry of Education because we are fighting for our children’s welfare, spending all morning there without electricity of under a tree, with mosquitoes and flies in the heat”.
Sunny Zulia is known as the land beloved by the sun and it more than honors that monicker. Parents will keep on protesting until the school’s transformer, which went bust in July 2019, is finally repaired.
“They are mad at us because we went to the governor’s house. But we will continue. We are giving them the 20-day lapse they asked of us. If after those 20 days there is not an effective response, we will go again to the governor’s house!” Vera promised.
Prieto is a polemical figure in Zulia. Lawmaker Juan Pablo Guanipa said he and not Prieto, was elected Zulia governor in 2018. Prieto, none the less, was sworn in by the Maduro controlled CNE electoral agency, triggering violent, on and off protests in the state lasting to this day. Maduro regime intervenes in grade school after the anti- governor protest.
