Tense calm holds in Venezuela a day after Maduro deposed

A tense calm held in Venezuela on Sunday, one day after president Nicolas Maduro was deposed and captured in an American military operation.

Venezuela’s capital Caracas was unusually quiet, with few vehicles moving around. Convenience shops, fuel stations and other businesses were mostly closed.

A day before, queues wound through shops and outside petrol stations as uncertain Venezuelans stocked up on goods in case turmoil broke out.

Roads typically filled with runners and cyclists sat largely empty on Sunday, and Venezuela’s presidential palace was guarded by armed civilians and members of the military.

Outside the capital, in La Guira state, families with houses damaged in blasts during the operation that captured Maduro and his wife were still cleaning up debris. Some buildings were left with walls gaping open.

After the seismic shift in Venezuela and promises by President Donald Trump that the United States will “run” Venezuela with the help of Maduro’s vice-president Delcy Rodriguez, no-one in the country seems to know where things stand or what lies ahead.

In a low-income neighbourhood in eastern Caracas, construction worker Daniel Medalla sat on the steps outside a Catholic church and told a few parishioners that again there would be no morning Mass.

Mr Medalla suggested the streets remained mostly empty not because people are worried about another strike, but because they are fearful of government repression if they dare celebrate, coming after a fierce government crackdown during last year’s fraught elections.

“We were longing for it,” Mr Medalla, 66, said of Maduro’s exit.