Venezuela says US military strikes damaged a key mathematics research centre and a medicine warehouse, destroying vital equipment and supplies.
CARACAS: Venezuela’s government has accused the United States of damaging civilian infrastructure, including a scientific research centre and a medical warehouse, in recent military strikes.
Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez confirmed civilian casualties from the weekend attacks on Caracas and three other states.
The strikes reportedly killed at least one civilian and 56 Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers, according to various sources.
Science and Technology Minister Gabriela Jimenez shared footage of a destroyed building she identified as the mathematics centre of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research.
“Two missiles struck the area directly,” Jimenez wrote on social media, posting images of crumbled walls and twisted steel.
She claimed the debris included fragments of an American AGM-154 glide bomb.
“The attack was total: these areas housed servers and equipment essential to our computer networks that were completely devastated,” Jimenez added.
Four other institute buildings for physics, chemistry, ecology and nuclear technology studies were also damaged.
Jimenez condemned what she called “an unprecedented act of imperial aggression.”
The governor of La Guaira state, Alejandro Teran, said the strikes destroyed a medicine warehouse in the port city.
“Tons of medicine burned to ash, tons of food,” Teran said in a social media video.
He did not provide immediate evidence that the destroyed goods were medical supplies.
The family of a 78-year-old woman confirmed she died after a strike hit her apartment building in La Guaira.
