TOCUYITO, Venezuela, Dec 17, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - A third prisoner among the thousands of people arrested in Venezuela in post-election protests has died, an NGO said Monday, with the government saying more than 500 such detainees have now been freed.

The protests erupted after President Nicolas Maduro was proclaimed the winner of the July 28 election, despite results published by the opposition appearing to show their candidate won by a landslide.

Twenty-eight people were killed and nearly 200 were wounded in the unrest. More than 2,400 were arrested,

The third prisoner known to have died in detention was Osgual Alexander Gonzalez Perez, 43, the NGO Foro Penal said.

The government has not commented on his case.

The NGO said Gonzalez Perez died in the Tocuyito maximum security prison in the central city of Carabobo, where many of the protest detainees were taken.

He was hospitalized in December with severe abdominal pain and apparently died of hepatitis, Foro Penal said.

"His family said that medical care came late and that they did not get precise information about his condition," it added.

Gonzalez Perez was the second prisoner in less than a week to die at the Tocuyito prison.

Outside it, relatives of the people held within gathered Monday to demand speedy revisions of their cases.

"I want them to free my son!" Yorimar Bermudez, mother of a 22-year-old man named Adrian Pacheco, told AFP.

"We do not want any more deaths at Tocuyito," said another woman, Mayra Rojas, also clamoring for the release of her son.

Earlier Monday, the public prosecutor's office said that 179 prisoners were released between December 10 and 14, bringing the total number released to 533.

Foro Penal said it was verifying the information and that so far it had only been able to confirm the release of 328 detainees.

More than 100 teenagers were among those arrested on charges of terrorism and taken to maximum security prisons as part of a sweeping crackdown that brought an end to the protests.

The families of some of the prisoners claim they were tortured in detention.

Only a handful of countries, including key Venezuela ally Russia, have recognized Maduro's re-election to a third six-year term.

The United States and the European parliament have recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as "president-elect."

The G7 bloc, which comprises the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Britain, Japan and France, said it considered Gonzalez Urrutia the election winner, without recognizing him as president-elect.

Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, fled with his wife to Spain in September after being threatened with arrest by Maduro's government.