Masked youths battled police, protesters burned and hung from lamp-posts effigies of President Nicolas Maduro and marchers demanded the “resurrection” of democracy on a volatile Easter Sunday in Venezuela.

Though millions of Venezuelans have headed for Caribbean beaches and family gatherings over the Easter period, student demonstrators have sought to keep a nearly three-month protest movement going with religious-themed demonstrations.

After a barefoot walk and a “Via Crucis” march in the style of Jesus’ tortured walk towards crucifixion earlier in the week, hundreds of demonstrators began Sunday with a rally denominated “Resurrection of Democracy.”

Easter marks the day Christians believe Jesus was resurrected from the dead after being crucified.

“We’re staying in the street until we get our country back,” student leader Djamil Jassir, 22, told Reuters in a square where protesters displayed dozens of used gas canisters and bullets as symbols of repression. “This is the time to stand firm.”

Later, several hundred hooded protesters, many wearing Guy Fawkes masks, set up barricades in the eastern Chacao district of Caracas that has been a near-daily battleground during recent unrest in Venezuela since mid-February.

Chanting “Liberty!”, the youths threw petrol bombs, fired stones from slings, tore down advertising hoardings, and placed wires across streets blocked by debris. Police responded with teargas and water-cannons, as residents banged pots and pans from windows in a form of protest. Some neighbors threw bottles of water and bags of ice down to the students from balconies.

Anti-Maduro protests since early February have led to violence killing at least 41 people, according to official figures. The dead have been from both sides of the South American nation’s political divide and from security forces.

Activists said a student was shot dead on Thursday night in Valencia city while raising cash for the Easter Sunday tradition of “burning Judas” - when neighbors set fire to effigies of hated figures in memory of the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

Gabriel Daza, 21, was constructing a model of a National Guard military officer, activists said via Twitter and in local media. If it is confirmed that his death was linked to the political tensions, he would be the 42nd fatality of the unrest.

Around Venezuela on Sunday, opposition supporters burned puppets of Maduro, the government’s powerful No. 2 Diosdado Cabello, and other senior officials. Effigies of a red-clad Maduro hung from several lamp-posts in Caracas.

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