'To die or to suffer, those are the options': Venezuela youth at sharp end of crime

At first sight, Yeyo looks inoffensive: a small, thin adolescent who still wears shorts and talks with a slight stutter. Yet the 15-year-old from the Venezuelan mining city of Puerto Ordaz, on the banks of the Orinoco river, is already a hardened criminal. He stole his first phone at 10, then quickly moved on to robbing homes, carjacking and assaulting customers at banks. For the right money, he kills too. "You just pull the trigger and that's it," the teenager says nonchalantly in the back of a car in the humble neighborhood, or 'barrio', where he is part of a gang of about a dozen members. More…