TwitterTragedy has struck Venezuela yet again after a local beauty queen died of a gunshot wound on Wednesday.
Genesis Carmona, 22, was reportedly attending a protest on the street in the central city of Valencia when she was shot in the head by an unidentified gunman on Tuesday. She was rushed to the hospital on a motorcycle, but later died in a clinic.
Carmona's death is the fifth fatality that has resulted from political unrest in the South American country as opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was imprisoned on Tuesday after turning himself in, continues to urge supporters to protest Venezuela's socialist government and President Nicolas Maduro.
Lopez has been leading a number of protests, which have reportedly resulted in three deaths after an opposition rally one week ago in Caracas. Another victim was apparently killed after being run over by a car during a demonstration in Carupano.
"How long are we going to live like this?," a relative of Carmona, who won the 2013 Miss Tourism competition in her state, told Reuters. "How long do we have to tolerate this pressure, with them killing us?"
"She only needed one more semester to graduate," he added of brunette beauty, who had been studying tourism prior to her death.
Speaking in Mexico on Wednesday, President Barack Obama urged the Venezuelan government to focus on the "legitimate grievances of the Venezuelan people."
"All parties have an obligation to work together to restrain violence and restore calm," he said.
This isn't the first death of a Venezuelan beauty queen to make headlines this year. Former Miss Venezuela and Telemundo star Mónica Spear along with her ex-husband, Henry Thomas Berry, were murdered during an attempted highway robbery on Jan. 6. The former couple's daughter, Maya, was shot in the leg; she survived.