Make-up Artist And Sniper Prepared To Die For Venezuela

Caracas, March 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Mar, 2021 ) :Dressed in camouflage, her face covered in mud, Ismaira Figueroa holds her position on a hill, rifle in hand, as she takes part in military exercises simulating an invasion.

"I feel like I was born to do this and if I had to die for this... I'm ready," says the 43-year-old sniper from the "Milicia," a civilian militia attached to the armed forces.

"Dying for my country, for my children, for my mother, for my siblings... I'm ready to give my life," she adds.

Figueroa says she's ready to defend Venezuela and the populist socialist "Bolivarian" regime of President Nicolas Maduro from any "invading army." She's a single mother of four, including a three-year-old daughter.

When not wearing military fatigues, Figueroa is a make-up artist and stylist. She also does social work in her community, is a biker and knits in her spare time.

In her home in the Palomera neighborhood in Caracas, Figueroa has a photo of late former leader Hugo Chavez, whom she views as a god.

In 1994, aged 16, she unsuccessfully tried to see him leaving prison, and once climbed a tree to try to "touch his finger." When Chavez came to power in 1999, he began implementing social policies that proved highly popular with much of the population, although he was accused of authoritarianism by his detractors.

Figueroa was one of the people who took to the streets in 2002 to "save" Chavez as a coup d'etat unfolded to remove him from power. It lasted only two days.

It was for Chavez that Figueroa joined the Milicia he created in 2009 and described as "people in arms.""We are not a little enemy," said Figueroa, a second sergeant. "The Milicia is the vegetable seller, the dog walker... a teacher, a taxi driver, a nurse."Maduro claims there are four million members of the militia out of a population of 30 million.