{"id":394019,"date":"2026-01-07T23:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394019\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:20:13","slug":"venezuelas-military-buries-soldiers-slain-in-us-operation-to-capture-maduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394019\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela’s military buries soldiers slain in US operation to capture Maduro"},"content":{"rendered":"

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s military held a mass funeral in the country’s capital on Wednesday as it began to bury dozens of soldiers slain during the United States’ weekend operation<\/a> to capture former President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Men carried wooden caskets cloaked in the Venezuelan flag past rows of uniformed officers. Singing echoed out from a nearby church in Caracas and music from a military orchestra ceremony echoed over the cemetery, while throngs of family members and soldiers marched behind a row of caskets. <\/p>\n

As the caskets were lowered into the ground, gunfire from a military ceremony echoed out over the state-owned graveyard in a low-income neighborhood in the city\u2019s south side. Earlier in the day, families cried and embraced next to the caskets during a wake.<\/p>\n

“Thank you for letting them embrace a military career,\u201d Rafael Murillo, a commander in the military, said to families surrounding him.<\/p>\n

Before the ceremony, armed National Guard members patrolled some areas while families of the killed soldiers finished paperwork required for the burials.<\/p>\n

At least 24 Venezuelan security officers<\/a> were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation over the weekend to capture Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges, according to Venezuela’s military.<\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said \u201cdozens\u201d of officers and civilians were killed and that prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a \u201cwar crime.\u201d He didn\u2019t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.<\/p>\n

Cuba\u2019s government on Sunday announced that 32 Cuban military and police officers<\/a> working in Venezuela had died in the operation, prompting two days of mourning on the Caribbean island.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,\u201d the Venezuelan military wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. \u201cIt reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s military held a mass funeral in the country’s capital on Wednesday as it began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[190783,23,966,4380,793,1576,3,21,19,22,20,25,24,965],"class_list":["post-394019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-190783","tag-america","tag-article","tag-funerals-and-memorial-services","tag-general-news","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}