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El Dorado, Venezuela

Coordinates: 6°43′0″N 61°37′0″W / 6.71667°N 61.61667°W / 6.71667; -61.61667
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El Dorado
El Dorado is located in Venezuela
El Dorado
El Dorado
Coordinates: 6°43′0″N 61°37′0″W / 6.71667°N 61.61667°W / 6.71667; -61.61667
CountryVenezuela
StateBolívar State
MunicipalitySifontes Municipality
Founded2 March 1894
Time zoneUTC−4 (VST)
ClimateAm

El Dorado is a small town in eastern Venezuela. It is situated in Bolívar State, on the Cuyuni River. It is the second-largest town in Sifontes Municipality; the capital of the municipality is Tumeremo.

It is on the road to Brazil. El Dorado has a small airport, IATA: EOR, ICAO: SVED.

History

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El Dorado was founded in the 1890s. Gold mining was developing in the area, and there was a background of international tension caused by the Essequibo border dispute between Venezuela and Britain.

Prison

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The town has a prison, the Centro Penitenciario de Oriente El Dorado. The Venezuelan prison system is generally overcrowded,[1] and El Dorado prison has been described in the British press as "notorious".[2][3] In 2015 the Venezuelan press reported the completion of a stage in a project to expand the prison, providing new facilities for the rehabilitation of offenders.[4]

Prisoners

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  • Henri Charrière. The prison is mentioned in the book Papillon.[3] While the accuracy of the book has been questioned, it is not disputed that its author, Henri Charrière, was imprisoned in Venezuela in the 1940s,[5] an epoch when the prisoners were assigned to mobile detention camps.

References

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  1. ^ "Crowded and grim: Inside Venezuela's prisons". Council on Hemispheric Affairs. August 23, 2011.
  2. ^ "Venezuela prison riot claims 42 lives". The Independent. 1997. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  3. ^ a b "Frank tells of hell in prison". Crewe Chronicle.
  4. ^ "Inauguran ampliación de cárcel de El Dorado". Correo del Caroni (in Spanish). January 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  5. ^ "Dead writer casts doubt". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-07-30. (subscription required)
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