Caracas has become one of the most violent cities on the planet. Armed gangs competing over turf and drug deals wage ruthless, low-level warfare

Caracas has become one of the most violent cities on the planet. Armed gangs competing over turf and drug deals wage ruthless, low-level warfare in the slums. Nationally, homicides have soared to more than 13,000 a year, with 2,710 in Caracas alone, according to leaked government figures. That gives a national rate of 48 per 100,000 people. In some Caracas slums the rate rises to 130. The rate in England and Wales is 1.4.In opinion polls Venezuelans consistently rank safety as their main concern, with 64 per cent expressing fear of being attacked in the street. Kidnappings have also surged, especially 'express kidnappings' in which victims or relatives pay an immediate relatively modest ransom.President Hugo Chávez may pay a political price today in local and regional elections. Voters are expected to vent frustration at crime - and shoddy public services - by rejecting some of his mayoral and state governor candidates.'It's mayhem here. And the government does nothing,' said María Elena Delgado, 54, a housewife in Petare, a vast slum in eastern Caracas. 'I have to think about my children.' The four surviving ones, that is. Three of her sons have been gunned down, including one before Chávez came to power a decade ago.Opinion polls suggest el comandante remains popular, with approval ratings well over 50 per cent, but that anger over crime could lose him control of once loyal bastions such as Petare.Chávez speaks in public daily, often for hours, but seldom mentions insecurity. He has blamed crime on capitalism and poverty, and said if his family was starving he would steal. 'The perception that crime has soared is a weak point for him,' said Steve Ellner, a political scientist at Venezuela's University of the East. 'He can't talk about crackdowns because that would contradict his whole discourse.' Some critics claim the President's denunciations of inequality and 'squealing oligarchs' have encouraged youths to ease their poverty the fast way, with a gun. Partly thanks to Chávez's social programmes, poverty levels have dropped from 53 to 37 per cent. Yet crime has spiked. Corrupt and inept policing has been compounded by a flood of cocaine from neighbouring Colombia. Changing the justice minister every year - there have been 10 under Chávez- has wrought institutional havoc.The authorities have expressed interest in fresh strategies. Ken Livingstone, London's former Mayor and Chávez ally, is advising Caracas on community policing. The Justice Ministry, which no longer publishes murder statistics, did not return calls seeking comment for this article.In the hillside slums ringing the capital the bloodiest days are Friday and Saturday. The salsa and reggae beats blaring from bars can swiftly be drowned by gunfire, said Miguel Torres, 52, a taxi driver. 'One second you're sipping a Polar [beer], the next you're under the table.'Some weekends more than 50 corpses make their way to Plaza Auyantepuy. Monday is funeral day, with hearses sometimes getting stuck behind other cortèges. A gang recently ambushed and killed rivals at a funeral home. 'Often they are just 16- and 17-year-olds but already they are psychopaths,' said Jimin Pérez, director of Project Alcatraz, a scheme which tries to rehabilitate gangsters. 'These guys kill for nothing.'Project Alcatraz, which is funded by the Santa Teresa rum company, has had mixed results. Some gang members have renounced violence. Others have been assassinated within days of completing the programme. Some have lapsed back into killing. 'We have to offer them a chance of another life,' said Pérez. 'When they feel abandoned and alone, that is when they have no limits, no controls.'

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Ammunition plant in Petare, a suburb of the capital often counted as Latin America’s largest barrio, was found crammed with lead ingots, lathes

Ammunition plant in Petare, a suburb of the capital often counted as Latin America’s largest barrio, was found crammed with lead ingots, lathes and moulds used to make 2,000 bullets a day of various calibres.People would drop by and pick up a box of bullets as if they were buying something from the local pharmacy,” says Chief Inspector Wilmer Flores Trosel, who oversaw the raid.Mr Flores, who recently took charge of the Metropolitan police in Caracas, faces a tough task.Although the nationwide homicide rate reached 48 murders per 100,000 people in 2007 – representing a 67 per cent jump since Hugo Chávez was elected president a decade ago – in Caracas the rate is at 130 per 100,000, according to official figures. The US rate hovers around six and the UK’s is around two.“There is a civil war going on here,” says Jesus Torrealba, an activist in the Caracas slums who is critical of the government.“But because it is a low intensity war, when 50 people die a weekend in Caracas, the world doesn’t want to hear about it – unlike, say, when a car bomb kills as many in Fallujah.”Venezuela is not alone: the average homicide rate in the region is four times higher than the global average, according to a recent report by the Organization of American States.But Venezuela is one of the worst. Since 2004 its murder rate has even exceeded that of neighbouring Colombia, which has been mired in a decades-long conflict involving a guerilla insurgency, paramilitary death squads and ruthless drug cartels.A recent poll by Caracas-based company Datanalisis found that 54 per cent rank personal insecurity and the rise of delinquency as Venezuela’s principal problem. Inflation came a distant second, with just 13 per cent considering it the country’s most pressing concern.However, the violence has so far had a limited impact on Mr Chávez’s popularity, which will be tested at regional elections in a fortnight.

While insecurity has consistently topped polls of citizens’ worries for the past three years, during the same time Mr Chávez’s popularity has fluctuated wildly. It fell from 70 per cent in 2006 to 46 per cent early this year, but has since rebounded to 57 per cent, according to Datanalisis, indicating little correlation between the problem of rising crime and the president’s popularity.

“The people don’t blame the president for this,” says Luis Vicente Leon, a director at Datanalisis.

Other problems such as the high and rising cost of living, unemployment and scarcity of basic goods – coffee is the latest item to have disappeared from supermarket shelves – are likely to have a bigger impact on the election result on November 23, Mr Leon argues.

Experts point to a number of reasons for Venezuela’s plight. High on the list is the fact that of over 6m arms circulating among a population of about 27m, some 4.5m are illegal, according to official estimates. Increased drug trafficking and usage combined with brutal gang warfare have exacerbated the bloodbath. Meanwhile, a corrupt and ineffective police force has so far done little to solve the problem, contributing to a general climate of impunity.

Mr Flores argues that gun crime is an inherited problem that started to become serious as long ago as the 1980s.

“You can’t change a country in just 10 years after 40 years of misrule,” he says.

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