Americans Ordered To Leave The US Embassy In Venezuela
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WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) - The political crisis continues to escalate in Venezuela and now there's a new order to get Americans out of the country safely.
In its sixth day of rolling blackouts, Venezuelans are using buckets and trash bins to gather water, shops are being looted, and hospitals are turning away patients.
"With respect with the power outages, those are a direct result of years and years neglect to the Venezuelan energy system," said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Embattled President Nicolas Maduro said the outage was the result of a cyber attack by the US but provided no evidence.
Overnight, Pompeo tweeted that he's withdrawing all remaining personnel from the US embassy in Venezuela this week as a response to the political unrest in the country.
Maduro has refused to give up power despite the democratic election of opposition leader Juan Guaidó back in December.
On Monday, Pompeo put blame on Cuba and Russia for supporting Maduro.
"Russian companies continue to this day to try to help the Maduro regime turn the gold reserves into cash, further squandering the assets of the Venezuelan people," he said.
Entering what's been nearly a full week of blackouts, Guaidó is calling for protests. Opposition groups insist an estimated 17 people have died due to lack of medical care, like dialysis.
On Monday, Guaidó addressed the country's National Assembly and asked that it declare a national state of emergency. He also asked to stop the delivery of Venezuelan oil to Cuba.
