CARACAS -- Police and National Guard killed four suspects Tuesday during a wide raid in Western Caracas that involved tanks and helicopters, as Venezuela also underwent the rare climate phenomenon known as a “solar halo.”

“As has been the request of our people, we have deployed OLP New Phase in 4 areas of Caracas,” tweeted Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez as the operation began unfolding. Local media said eight suspected criminals were killed during the operation, but Gonzalez spoke only of four killed when resisting police action. Some 400 vehicles were used during the operation, ranging from motorcycles to tanks and choppers.

The purpose of the raid, Gonzalez said was to “eradicate organized crime” and “the paramilitary.” Venezuelan government officials frequently blame the country’s high crime rate on right-wing paramilitary groups supposedly originated in Colombia and affiliated with the local anti-Maduro opposition, a charge the opposition has denied and the government failed to prove conclusively.

The homicide rate in Venezuela is surging again in 2016, the Prosecutor General’s office warned in its first quarterly report of the year last week. Venezuela suffered 18,000 homicides in 2015 according to the Prosecutor General, but NGO’s put that figure closer to 28,000 murders for last year.

Also during the operation, 1,131 suspects for different crimes were apprehended, the Interior and Justice Ministry said in a tweet. Seventeen cars, 19 motorcyles, 15 fire arms, all supposedly stolen, as well as unspecified amounts of illegal drugs were also seized during the operation, minister Gonzalez said.

HIGH CASUALTY RATE

State television said 3,200 security personnel were deployed in the operation, called “OLP” by the government, the Spanish language acronym of “Operations for the Liberation of the People.” OLP’s are a forceful, wide raid implemented on high crime areas of Venezuela that have been criticized for their high casualty rates, both for police and suspects.

Cops and guardsmen closed main roads leading into four sections of Western Caracas -- Cota 905, Coche, El Cementerio and El Valle -- Tuesday morning before the showdown. Afterwards, per OLP’s established procedure, they went house-to-house seeking criminals -- but this time, cops brought more than just body armor.

TANKS IN THE PEACE ZONE

For the first time ever, tanks were deployed in one of Caracas’ few “zonas de paz”, or “peace zones” -- Cota 905.

Like the OLP itself, the “peace zones” are a divisive, highly controversial initiative: high-crime areas were police stopped patrolling three years ago, after talks with local gangs. Now the cops are back and in full force.

All in all, four agencies were involved in the OLP: National Guard (Armed Forces), CICPC (Venezuela’s version of the FBI), National Police, and the Sebin national intelligence service, also part of Venezuela’s military.

#EnVivo | Min @GonzalezMPPRIJP "hemos retenido para verificación 1.131 personas de las cuales hay 112 indocumentadas" #OLPAntiParamilitar
— MPPRIJP (@MIJPVenezuela) May 10, 2016

REAL LIFE “HALO”

While cops and suspects shot it out in Caracas, a “solar halo” was visible in almost all of Venezuela.

During this unusual event -- the first in recorded Venezuelan history -- the sun appeared surrounded by a rainbow-like, circular “halo”, something that occurs when clouds at a certain altitude are extremely cold and present particles of ice inside them.

A halo around the sun is an extremely rare occurrence in countries around the equator.

Venezuela saw a new wave of looting this week that resulted in at least two deaths, countless wounded, and millions of dollars in losses and damages.

On the morning of Wednesday, May 11, a crowd sacked the Maracay Wholesale Market in the central region of Venezuela.

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According to the testimonies of merchants, the endless food lines that Venezuelans have been enduring to do groceries could not be organized that day.

As time went by, desperate Venezuelans grew anxious over not being able to buy food. Then they started jumping over the gates.

¡VENEZUELA TIENE HAMBRE! #Video Saquean Mercado Mayorista Maracay #11May pic.twitter.com/DGRZ1bgkgI vía @venezolanodecen #CNERevocatorioYA

— El llanero (@llaneroVen) May 11, 2016

“They took milk, pasta, flour, oil, and milk powder. There were 5,000 people,”one witness told Venezuela outlet El Estímulo.

People from across the entire state came to the supermarket because there were rumors that some products not found anywhere else would be sold there.

“There were 250 people for each National Guard officer… lots of people and few soldiers. At least one officer was beat up because he tried to stop the crowd,” another source told El Estímulo.

Other food dispensaries run by the government were also looted by the people.

According to some reports, an entrance gate collapsed under the weight of the crowd, leaving several wounded.

Over the last two weeks, several provinces have hosted scenes of looting in pharmacies, shopping malls, supermarkets, and food delivery trucks. In several markets, shouts of “we are hungry!” echoed.

On April 27, the Venezuelan Chamber of Food (Cavidea) reported that the country’s food producers only had 15 days left of inventory.

Official Month of Hunger

Oscar Meza, Director of the Documentation Center for Social Analysis (Cendas-FVM), said that measurements of scarcity and inflation in May are going to be the worst to date.

“We are officially declaring May as the month that [widespread] hunger began in Venezuela,” he told Web Noticias Venezuela. … “As for March, there was an increase in yearly prices due to inflation — a 582.9 percent increase for food, while the level of scarcity of basic products remains at 41.37 percent.”

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Meza said the trigger for the crisis is the shortage of bread and other foods derived from wheat.

“Prices are so high that you can’t buy anything, so people don’t buy bread, they don’t buy flour. You get porridge, you see the price of chicken go up and families struggle … lunch is around 1,500 bolivars… People used to take food from home to work, but now you can’t anymore because you don’t have food at home,” Meza said.